Water on the Wind
by sueb262
Summary: Between the assassin's blood-spattered alleys and the wanderer's lonely roads, there was a cabin on a mountainside. Between the headstrong teenager and the gentle man, there was a woman. An embroidery on the OVA Trust & Betrayal. Completed. For now. Until, that is, I write the alternate ending.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

 _Kyoto,_ _Kōmei_ _18 (1864)_

Men shouted orders. Girls shrieked and wept. In the courtyard, horses' hooves churned up dust as they pulled cannon carts and wagonloads of weapons into place. The front gate groaned and then, beams creaking and hinges shrieking, it twisted, swelled inward, sagged, and crashed open. The enemy swarmed in, striking without quarter and firing at anything that moved. Smoke filled the air, adding to the confusion. In the dark of the new moon, the zing of bullets and the clash of swords rang through the inn, and the halls filled with pounding feet and colliding bodies. Laundrywomen and cooks, chambermaids and stable boys scurried for safety. Soldiers and apprentices, weapons in hand, surged toward the fracas. Against the tide, two silent figures slipped unnoticed toward the rear of the compound.

The Kohagi-ya was under attack.

"Come." Minutes before the chaos had erupted, he'd appeared in the kitchen doorway. She'd been alone, the evening meal long over, the other girls back in their rooms. She liked this time of calm after the frenetic afternoon—stumbling over each other preparing so much food, then the serving and the cleaning up—and so she always lingered in the empty kitchen. It was a time for her own thoughts as she neatened the contents of shelves and straightened stacks of dishes, details that no one cared about but her. At his unexpected voice, she had glanced up and was startled to find him standing not an arm's length from her; she could feel his body heat. With a sharp jerk of his head, he'd slipped back out into the hallway. Mystified, she'd dried her hands on her apron and stepped through the open doorway, but found the corridor empty. As her eyes adjusted from the bright kitchen to the unlit hallway, she saw a slight movement in a dark recess. He waited there, holding two packages, and her stomach flipped when she recognized the one she'd had packed since that day in his room—the day when Katsura had, in every meaningful way, married them.

"What—?"

"It's time. Take my hand."

Before she could speak again, he'd shifted her bundle into her arms, grabbed one of her wrists, and turned and pulled her after him, just as the first alarms from the guards reached them. His iron grip hauled her along the dim corridors that led to the alley behind the inn. Even here, deep in the labyrinth of halls and rooms and gardens that were the rebels' headquarters, the acrid smell of gunpowder stung her nose and eyes. The growing cacophony overwhelmed her, and she felt panic rising. She struggled to keep up, and she stumbled several times. He didn't look back, and he didn't slow, but pulled her along behind him at a steady pace. She held her bundle tighter, and grieved the things she'd left out for the last minute—her best hair ribbon, her favorite scarf, her last letter from Akira.

The surge of people thinned as they moved deeper through the building, farther from the conflict, and the din faded with each passageway they passed. The back halls were by now deserted and silent. Eerie. She felt as if she were entering a dream.

He stopped just inside the exit to the alley. He released his grip on her, and looked at her for the first time since the kitchen. "Wait here." Then he slid aside the heavy door—a storm was on its way, and the fresh breeze that swirled in, dotted with moisture, lifted the hair by her cheek—and disappeared through the crack he'd made, leaving her standing in utter blackness, out of breath and heart pounding. "It's time," he'd said, and the moment that she'd hoped would never come was on her, taking her breath away.

"You know," a soft voice sounded at her back, and she spun to see her friend, the inn's proprietress, silhouetted in the glow from a dark lantern in her hand. "The iris blooms best in the rain, even if it's a rain of blood." She set the lantern on the floor, and pressed a hand on Tomoe's shoulder. "Turn around."

Ōkami's words swirled in Tomoe's head—they made no sense. The older woman's hands were at Tomoe's waist, untying the apron, then slipping it off over her head. Tomoe turned back to face her friend. "The iris—? A rain of blood… What—?"

"Anō—" But the woman was interrupted. Kenshin had slipped back in through the door. Without a word or a look, he took hold of Tomoe's wrist again. As he tugged her toward their escape, Ōkami just had time to finish—"Irises should always be arranged in pairs"—before the door closed between them.


	2. The Setup

**The Setup**

 _In which Katsura and Takasugi wonder how to solve a problem like Kenshin._

"And how are you going to protect him if that happens? You'd have to go into hiding, and you couldn't take him with you. I have my doubts about your making it to Hagi even in disguise, and you know how he stands out. With him in tow, your capture's a virtual certainty." Takasugi sat cross-legged, his shamisen cradled between his knees. His long, lazy fingers plucked at its strings, twanging out snatches of tunes. "Even if you were to get there in one piece, the fact that it's your hometown isn't going to help much when they get a look at him!"

"What would you have me do? To leave him here, on his own…" Katsura reached over and stilled his friend's twitchy hand. "There is no place for him to hide here in the City. And I'm sworn to his safety."

Dawn was fast approaching. They'd been talking like this most of the night, discussing each soldier in turn, and how best to protect the assets that remained to them. A captive had finally broken around midnight, and the interrogator had dared to wake the Choshu leader with this niggle of intelligence: The Bakufu was planning a raid against the headquarters of the rebellious clans in Kyoto—Choshu's included—to drive them back inside their han boundaries. No time frame, no names, no strategies. Just enough tantalizing bits of information to make for a looming threat. Just enough to require urgent plans, but too little for the Commander to be able to share with his lieutenants. A situation as explosive and nebulous as this would not bear power posturing and territorial shoving matches. No, there was only one man Katsura could confide in.

Takasugi had been with him from the beginning, when the very idea of revolt against the Shogunate was a heresy. It was Takasugi who had dared to sit with him, and drink with him, and talk with him. Together, the two of them had formed, almost like a paper model sitting on the table between them, the shape of the revolution. It was Takasugi who had the connections for recruitment, and it was Takasugi who trained the men.

It was Takasugi who'd found Kenshin. Takasugi who'd just happened to bring Katsura down to review the new recruits at the practice grounds that day. Who'd pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary, but who'd watched out of the corner of his eye and seen Katsura's face when he caught sight of the tiny figure with the outlandish hair and the stunning swing. Just that one glimpse, but the idea that had sprung into Katsura's mind was just as outlandish and stunning. Thin the ranks. Weaken the structure at the top. In another kind of organization, it might have little effect, but the Shogun had always held power close, delegating little, yet relying on the devotion of a swath of loyal retainers. Remove the loyal few… Katsura knew it would work. And it would change everything.

It had also been Takasugi who had warned his friend about the ruin this plan would work in the boy, the destruction of his humanity that such wholesale slaughter would wreak. Takasugi who had extracted the promise that Katsura's sword must from then on remain silent in atonement. A man must wield only one sword at a time if he is to give it proper attention.

"You've been handling the safe-houses for me. What about one of them?"

"Not a chance. They're all in use. Packed. Sorry, boss."

"Stop calling me that."

Katsura's head felt like it was splitting. He had no idea what to do about his most valuable asset and couldn't imagine how he'd even begin to cut him loose. What would happen to the boy? And to the City?

Then an image popped into his head: tiny, run-down, unused for years. Not even on the list anymore, it was remote and yet only a day's walk. Hidden, but supportable by the nearby town. The perfect place for a couple, for newlyweds.

"There is always Ōtsu…"


	3. 1: The Beginning

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 1: The Beginning

 _In which Kenshin keeps watch._

At first, he spent most of his time out of doors.

The tedious vigilance and maddeningly sporadic terror of his last months in the City clung to him like a stubborn stench that wouldn't wash away. He slept little. After a few hours dozing in the darkest corner from which he could still see the door, he would wake in the damp black before dawn and slip out into the chill air. Stealing along the pathless wilderness behind the cottage, he sought a different spot each day—sometimes up a tree or pushed back into a bush-shielded hollow in the mountainside—and would settle in for a few hours of guard duty. Other times, restless and bored, he patrolled, obsessing over any sound and poring over tracks that weren't tracks. He thought it unlikely that his attackers would use the path that passed by the little house, but he had no backup and so had to cover all approaches himself. Once the sun was up, he would return to the house, and to breakfast.

The house had been provisioned well enough with staples for several weeks of strict rations, but he would have to find a way to re-supply fresher items soon. There were two of them, after all, and he wasn't sure how much sustenance a woman required. His shishou used to lecture him about women and saké between lectures on how to eat (no fingers, boy!), what to wear (not that), and whom to associate with (no one, as it turned out). His master's tastes and habits had baffled him, and he wondered what his abandoned teacher would say about the situation he now found himself in.

He'd been uneasy with his commander's choice of companion. He did understand the necessity of a cover for himself, and he even accepted the scheme to pose as the husband half of a married couple. After all, a single man living alone in one of the huts that dotted the mountainside above the town would have attracted far too much curiosity. In the City, of course, single men lived on their own, but almost exclusively in cramped row houses, or otherwise as tenants in larger households. However, in rural areas, with living space carved out of precious agricultural land or steep, inhospitable hillsides, no dwelling larger than a shed could be allowed to house only one occupant without inviting prying questions.

No, he understood well that a "wife" was key to the success of the plan, to his survival, though he would have preferred someone—anyone—other than this particular woman. It was bad enough that she'd attached herself to him at headquarters. Now he worried that her presence, while necessary, would interfere with his ability to concentrate. He'd avoided the company of the women in the housekeeping staff whenever he could. He'd found their endless chattering a distraction at best, and had been appalled by the foolish flirtations flung his way. The men knew enough to avoid him, but the women… What were they thinking? What possible outcome could they have been imagining? He was not a suitable companion for a woman. Couldn't they see that a domestic life was not in his future? He was a killer, a demon. Nothing but a sword.

However, to his relief, he discovered that the solemn demeanor she'd displayed at headquarters was, in fact, her true nature. Her obsession with order was a match with his own, and she was not giddy. Too, her personal habits proved to be adequately unobtrusive. In fact, she was almost mute.

This suited him. She kept their space tidy with a minimum of fuss, and she provided their meals promptly and handily. She did not seem to require anything of him, and this, too, suited him. He was free to focus on that which was truly important: morning kata, hauling water, splitting wood. Keeping watch.


	4. 2: Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady

_A/N: I use a lot of flashbacks, and in my print version, they are set off by both italics and indentation. But ffnet's editor seems to no longer provide indentation, so when you see a block of italics, that's a flashback. I wish I could set them out more._

 **Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 2: Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady

 _In which Tomoe goes with her strength._

He seemed to be always watching. Ever on the prowl. Tension radiated from him in a steady aura of focus and intensity. She never saw him sleep.

When she'd agreed to accompany him in his exile, she'd been sure that this would be the perfect opportunity for her. She knew that, in order to approach him, she would have to slip under his guard, would have to manipulate him into trusting her. But during that last month before the rebels were attacked and driven out, she had watched with increasing apprehension as he'd neared some kind of breaking point. He'd glided like a ghost along the darkened corridors of the inn, and he rarely slept. His pale skin had grown even paler, that single scar blazing against the drained cheek like a red warning. Once, in the cold pre-dawn, before he was due to return, she'd entered his room to clean it and had almost stumbled over him hunched cross-legged, right out in the middle of the floor, far from the safety of the darkest corner. Bedraggled and bloodied, he leaned heavily on his sword, his breathing labored. He'd looked up at her dully, and she could see blood oozing from the wound on his cheek. Her presence seemed not to register with him—she was nothing more than a blip in his world, not a threat, background as much as the tatami under him. As she backed cautiously out of the room, his bloodshot eyes lost their focus on her, and his gaze drifted back down to the floor. But later, when he appeared in the mess hall for breakfast, he was as self-contained and disciplined as ever—no sign of fatigue or disorientation, the only sign of disorder a fresh bandage on his face—and when he'd looked at her with his customary cool politeness, and thanked her for serving him, she felt chilled to her core.

It was no different here—he was impenetrable. She began to fear that there would be no opportunity for revenge. Rather, every day she spent in his company increased her chances of being found out. She began to think more about survival. She knew she could not count on his ignoring her forever.

Oh, she was a fool to have set herself on this path! No, she must get out of it, get away from this place of nightmares and death. She would go home. The sudden decision left her giddy with relief. Enishi! She would see her beloved brother again. And Father, dearest Father! Once more she would cook for them, wander the woods with her brother, tend to their little garden, be at peace.

She must request an immediate audience with Katsura—how did one go about that?—and tell him that she wanted— or rather, ask him if she could— No, first she'd contact Field Marshal Tatsumi and say— No. Maybe it would be best to seek Ōkami's advice— The tangle of impossibilities tightened around her mind, smothering her into despair. There was no way out. She couldn't face Katsura—that way lay almost certain execution—and she couldn't approach the thuggish Yaminobu, who had as much as promised the forfeit of her life if she failed.

Beyond all that, it was the prospect of talking with Ōkami that she found the most daunting. Ōkami knew nothing of Tomoe's secret situation, and the mere idea of first recounting the whole sordid tale and then asking for yet more help from her shamed her to an unbearable degree. Ōkami had been the first person in the City to show Tomoe the slightest kindness, and Tomoe had come to care very much what the older woman thought of her. During their time working together, they had formed an unspoken bond around their shared sensibilities: order, calm, beauty. Loyalty. _Akira…_

So. There was nothing else for it. She would stay in Ōtsu. And yet it seemed to her that her predicament had been sprung on her like a trap.

 _Tension had been building among the troops for many days, and she had no idea why. Daily, it seemed, men and equipment disappeared from the compound. Later, she overheard whispers about "hiding places" and "deserters," and hair-raising tales of a few defectors who had been captured and brought back._

 _"Kei-chan, please don't cry! Not here! Ōkami will hear you and be angry!"_

 _Keiko, huddling in a corner of the kitchen and weeping into her apron, tried to answer, but could manage only sobbing hiccups. At last, she calmed enough to choke out, "But, Momo-onee, if you could have seen—"_

 _Momoko tightened her arm around her friend's shaking shoulders and touched her cool forehead to Keiko's overheated one. "Shhh, shhh, it's all right." She glanced back over her shoulder and, seeing that their boss was nowhere in sight, said, "Come with me. Let's go out into the garden for a minute." She guided Keiko through the door out into the dewy gray dawn and over to the bench just below the kitchen's single window. Tomoe could hear snatches of their conversation._

 _"...hanging by his ankles...split bamboo rods striking..."_

 _"...worse if you talk about it...why did you go out there?"_

 _"...hot wax...screaming..."_

 _"...don't think about..."_

 _She wished she couldn't hear even that much. The story left her feeling queasy, but she dared not leave the kitchen short-staffed with breakfast underway. She gripped the edge of the big table and leaned heavily on its sturdiness._

 _Just then, Ōkami came in and noticed the two girls' absence, but one look at Tomoe's ashen face and wide eyes, along with a phrase or two from the window, told her all she needed to know. Ōkami, too, must have known of the brouhaha last night in the back house. In fact, it was a testament to the violence of the times that the whole neighborhood hadn't shown up this morning with the police in tow._

 _"Tomoe-chan," she said, pitching her voice so it could be heard out the window, "When you see Keiko, please tell her that I'd like her to help me arrange flowers today. In my sitting room." Silence from the garden now. The girls must be holding their breath, wide-eyed with fear. Even safe in the kitchen, she was afraid for them, afraid to breathe lest she betray them somehow. "Momoko must hurry back to the kitchen as soon as she's... finished with..." Ōkami waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the window. "...with whatever she's doing." She blew out a little exasperated sigh and turned to leave._

 _"Yes, ma'am." Tomoe, still shaken, bowed to her mistress' back. "I'll tell her." Arranging flowers was considered by the girls to be almost like a day off. "Thank you," Tomoe whispered on behalf of the forgiven Keiko._

 _"And Tomoe-chan?" Ōkami paused in the doorway. She spoke over her shoulder. "Sit down before you fall down."_

 _The next evening, as they were clearing away dinner, Katsura appeared in the kitchen's entrance, stunning the room into a sudden, frozen silence. He'd never even stepped foot into the housekeeping wing, not once since she'd come to work there. She barely knew his face, as she'd caught only glimpses of him across courtyards and down hallways. Once, in the blackness before dawn, as she hurried from the women's rooms to the kitchen to begin the morning meal, she'd passed a doorway that wasn't quite closed. She moved to slide it shut, but a single candle inside, burning too low to be seen in the hallway and guttering in its own pool of wax, stopped her hand in mid-air. The Commander and three other men hunched around maps and scrolls strewn on the tatami floor and spoke in low, urgent tones—their gray, fatigued faces told the story of an all-night meeting. The thought of what it could mean had filled her with dread._

 _Today, however, he was fresh and collected, if just a little too focused. As he stood in the doorway, he glanced over all of them, seeming to evaluate each in turn. He settled his penetrating gaze on her. A jerk of his head, and then he turned on his heel and vanished into the corridor. In the petrified hush that followed, the girl standing next to her snatched off Tomoe's apron and hissed, "Hurry! Follow him!" and gave her a small shove toward the door. Her heart in her mouth, she scurried out the open door after him, forgetting to close it because she could see he was already down the hall, mounting the steps toward the soldiers' rooms, not even checking that she was behind him._

 _She couldn't imagine what was going to happen to her. Was she wanted for pleasure? For punishment? And which was worse? Her mind raced over anything she might have done that could have drawn Katsura's attention, or given offense. She was out of breath by the time she caught up with him, just as he stopped at the door to the killer's—her killer's!—room._

 _Her chest clutched with rising panic. Was she being handed over to him? The idea of being with him… Or had she perhaps been found out? Was this going to be a scene of accusation and forced confession, perhaps even culminating in her target's being given the opportunity to avenge himself on her here and now?_

 _Hiding her trembling with difficulty, she nevertheless knelt smoothly and slid open the shoji, bowing deep as Katsura swept past her into the room. She lifted her eyes just in time to see the assassin drop to one knee, bracing himself with one stiff-armed fist against the tatami and snapping his head down before his commander. She'd glimpsed his face, and was surprised to see uncertainty there, too, and even shock._

 _"Himura-san, do you have leisure now?"_

 _The soldier looked up and replied in a voice that only just reached her, "My time belongs to you, my Commander." He still had not so much as glanced in her direction._

 _Katsura drew a breath to speak, but instead stopped abruptly and turned his head towards her. Himura turned as well, and the sudden heat in her cheeks made her eyes water. She started to close the door in obedience to the expected dismissal, so it took her a moment to understand what he'd said._

 _"Yukishiro-san, please come in and close the door behind you."_

Now that they were here, living together, married in law, she struggled to imagine how she could turn her predicament to her advantage. She couldn't read him like he seemed to read her. He had no emotional needs that she could fill, no chinks in his smooth facade. There was no question of his revealing himself to her. Between them, there was only distance and deceit.

 _Deceit._ That was it. Since she'd left her home, she'd done nothing but deceive: her family, when she'd told them she was going to the City to earn her living. Field Marshal Tatsumi, when she'd agreed to be the mole in the Yaminobu's hunt for the demon assassin. She'd allowed Ōkami—her only friend—to think her merely a "lost cat," as someone in need of rescue, rather than someone from whom others might need rescuing. She'd even deceived the murderer himself, shuttering her spirit around him so that he lost his wariness.

She was good at deceit.

So, she would pretend. To Katsura, to do just as he'd requested: to be the assassin's sanctuary, his retreat. To Himura, to truly be his wife: feed him, work alongside him, even sleep alongside him, if it came to that. To the Yaminobu, that she would turn him over to them: meet with her agent, listen to their scheme. Tell them what they wanted to hear, let them think they were using her, rather than the other way around. And she would find her moment.


	5. 3: The Trouble with Iizuka

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 3: The Trouble with Iizuka

 _In which Katsura takes counsel._

"I don't trust him."

Katsura lay with his head in Ikumatsu's lap, enjoying a rare pipe while she stroked his forehead. This would be a short visit. In fact, he'd sneaked out, and felt guilty about it—there was so much preparation for the move, and he still hadn't decided when it would happen. But he knew it would be soon.

"I must maintain contact with Himura."

"You are right, of course. But why choose Iizuka?"

"Why not?" Katsura valued his consort's opinion, and never more so than when it came to a man's character. In this case, however, he couldn't see her objection. "I'm only asking him to check on him once in a while, and to relay messages."

"Rie says that he doesn't behave when he comes here." Ikumatsu lifted his head from her lap and laid it gently on the pillow next to her. She removed his pipe from his mouth and emptied the ashes into a small dish on the nearby tray, then refilled it from a lacquered coffer. "He is often drunk when he visits, and he mistreats the girls." She re-lit the pipe, and puffed twice to get it going. As she offered the stem to him, she said, "And Ōkichi tells me that Himura finds him repellent, as well."

Katsura sat up and took the pipe. He shouldn't even take the time to finish it. This was not the first time he'd gotten wind of Iizuka's misdeeds at the pleasure house. He'd warned the man, and more than once, but Iizuka was hard to pin down. His obsequious manner meant that talking to him felt to the Commander like trying to corner an eel in a brewer's vat. "Perhaps. But I have ordered him not to make contact with Himura unless I specifically ask him to. If all goes well, Himura may not have to deal with him at all."

It could be that Iizuka wasn't the ideal choice, but with so many of his men already in hiding, his options were limited. If he were honest, he had to admit that he didn't trust the man himself, but he did know Himura, and Himura's ability to keep himself safe, and so he didn't think the situation warranted someone with more reliability.

Something she'd said finally bubbled to the top of his mind. "Did you say… Is he violent with the women?" He wouldn't tolerate that for the space of a thunderclap.

A playful tune floated in from a distant room. It clashed with the somber mood in their chamber, and Ikumatsu reached behind her to close the second, inner door. The sudden quiet only served to highlight the tension between them. "No, I wouldn't say that, but he is rough with them. And rude in his speech." She poured him another bowl of tea. "And he cheats them when he can get away with it."

He downed his tea in one gulp. Time to get back. He didn't want to leave—this might very well be their last time together for a long while. He took her chin in his hand and studied her face. He didn't want to talk about Iizuka anymore. He didn't even want to talk about Himura. Her beauty moved him, and her gentleness nurtured him. But more than that, it was only with her that he felt himself these days.

He leaned in and kissed her gently on the mouth, then laid his palm on her cheek. "Please take care of yourself. For me."


	6. 4: A Lost Cat

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 4: A Lost Cat

 _In which Tomoe almost picks up a stray._

He was out again.

She knew perfectly well why he was reluctant to leave the confines of their little plot or the surrounding forest, not even for the relative safety of the town. The entire Ishin Shishi, down to the lowliest stable-boy, was in desperate hiding. She didn't know much about the conflict that she was caught up in, that had twisted and shredded her life, but Katsura had made it clear that things had never looked as black for his cause, for his faction and allies. She couldn't have cared less about all that, but she had managed to work out that the capture of the monstrosity who had stalked the dark alleys of the City with such deadly effect would have been a prize nearly as valuable as Katsura himself, if only for the deliciousness of the revenge that could be worked on his body.

And there would be no ransom demand, nor any offer given in response. Those who would be of a mind to capture him would be less interested in payment than in reprisal and the display of power and authority that such a capture would afford. She had to admit that, sadly, his own people would be unlikely to pay up anyway. Once his identity were known, he would be a liability. Even the negotiations required to retrieve him would expose more of their organization than they would be willing to risk.

In spite of herself, she felt a twinge of pity at how unvalued he was except as a weapon. How isolated he was, even from those who could be called his comrades. How utterly alone, how profoundly homeless.

Then her mind righted itself, and she remembered her hatred for this demon, and she shoved out of her heart any weakness or pity, in just the way he must have done on that night when he had stolen her future.


	7. 5: On the Mountainside

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 5: On the Mountainside

 _In which Kenshin builds a trap._

He shifted to the other knee, and brushed away a sharp twig that had dug itself into his skin even through the heavy silk of his hakama. Here in the warmth of a forest poised on the edge of summer, the hours spent squatting, waiting for events that would not occur, drained him in a way that the brutal cold of nights in dark alleys had not. This was nothing like stalking prey. It was boring—there was no plausible element of risk or attack—and he found it difficult to maintain focus.

Time for another perimeter check.

He picked his way down the mountainside, always using new paths and often pausing to listen. He heard nothing. Nothing but birds and insects, and the occasional far-off crunch of a larger creature, too quiet for a bear and too noisy for a fox. Raccoons. Or monkeys. Not even the hint of another human. It seemed he was truly hidden here. He tore a leaf off a nearby bush as he passed and began to strip it to its bones. His neck was stiff and his mood sour.

On his arrival, his first priority had been to evaluate their situation. The safe-house sat on a small bluff, open to the northeast, thrust out from the shelter of the slope overlooking the village. The house—once charming, but now suffering from neglect and misuse, its furnishings disordered and dirty—faced the village to the north. The porch afforded views, to the north, of both the village and the lake, and, downhill, to the east, a large, busy road and a wide expanse of forest beyond it. A lean-to ran along the length of the south wall. Behind the house, closer to the river that ran nearby, was a well. Its weathered wooden cover sat askew, and when he lifted it, a couple of spiders skittered out and over the stone edge. Its depths were too dark to see, but he could smell fresh water. He would have to rig up a bucket. To one side of the house was a large plot of scruffy weeds that bore traces of having once been a garden. Situated east of the house, it hung on the very edge of the bluff. If he stood on its bushy edge, he could survey the whole town and the lake stretching away beyond it. He took the measure of its security, its defensibility, its capacity to harbor threats.

The last station on the Tokaidō before entering the City, Ōtsu was a raucous scene of merchants and travelers, law enforcement and priests, farmers and housewives. Shops, open to the street, employed hawkers to compete for customers. Caravans of goods trundled through town in a ceaseless flow. Nervous tourists sought the safety of lodgings or tried to corral their children. Scam artists scraped and smiled and pickpockets slithered through the crowd like eels through seaweed. An occasional lady, shrouded in her sedge hat and long veil, with a halo of attendants. Bodyguards of rich samurai and government emissaries shouldered their way through the throng, trailing entourages of maids and porters, chefs and food bearers, wheeled trunks and packhorses. Swords bristled on every hip, and residents scurried around skirmishes, hardly bothering to notice.

The Tokaidō itself, the teeming highway that connected the shogun's palace in Edo with the Imperial Palace in the City, curved along the southern shore of Lake Biwa from the east through the center of town, and then turned westward, passing along the south base of the mountain and out the valley before meeting the Sanjo Bridge, where it crossed the City's eastern-most river. He'd found that he could scout this road from almost anywhere on the hillside. The course of humanity that surged along its length might hide threats from his immediate detection, but it likewise afforded him cover from potential assailants.

The path up the hillside that led to their cabin, however, was a different story. It began like a secret: Accessible only by squeezing down a shadowed alley behind an uninhabited length of row houses, the dense forest swallowed it as it rose in a steep slope. Up at their end of it, the part that led away from the cottage doubled back on and overlooked itself. Anyone approaching the cabin would have to retrace his steps right underneath someone standing sentry, whether coming or going. They were hiding in plain sight. Perfect.

He was having trouble adjusting to this life of daylight and quiet. He wondered where Katsura was, how many of his fellow Shishi had been captured in the raid that had driven him out. Driven them all out. He chafed at the enforced idleness. Even the isolation did not sit well with him. He'd always preferred his own company, but there had been one or two whom he had tolerated, and he remembered many breakfasts, sitting a little way off, listening to the idle table talk, where he learned much more about the speakers than their words intended. Here, in his banishment, somehow, she didn't count as "company."

His ramblings had brought him to the bank of the river that raced down the mountain, through the town's center and toward the lake. He followed its rocky bank downhill, picking his way over stones and branches, his mind only loosely skimming his environment. He'd already begun to think of the paths of this forest, of this little territory of his exile, as safe. Safer, at least, than the paths he had routinely trod in the service of the rebellion, those alleys and backstreets lined with hazards and smeared with the trampled blood of his victims.

The river ran flat and quiet here, deep and dark in the center and lined with deep green flowing moss near its edge. He had stopped to watch the dappled shade on its surface when a burst of water startled him out of his reverie: a fish in the air, its silvery scales gleaming in the dappled sunlight, curved body trailing a ribbon of water. The image put him in mind of his master, how he'd taught him the way of weaving together long flexible twigs into a loose basket, and how then to wedge the trap between rocks in a promising set of rapids. They had spent many hours lying on the riverbank waiting for the evening's meal to offer itself. No dish offered from any kitchen in the City could compare to a pike set on the grill mere moments after its heart had beat its last.

He was a little out of practice, but his fingers still remembered the trick of bending and braiding the branches. Soon he'd fashioned a passable trap, with long braided strands on either side. He examined his work with satisfaction, testing it for strength. He removed his sandals, then rose, hitched the sides of his hakama higher into its ties on each hip, and waded out into the icy stream. He'd watched the fish passing along this section of the river and saw they favored one passage in particular. He stretched the braided strands across this opening and secured them with the heaviest of the rocks, then sloshed back up onto the bank to dry off and wait.

He found a sunny spot, and lay back against the soft forest floor. The sky was blue in the tender haze of the summer morning, and the green undergrowth soft at his back. While he waited, he gave serious thought to their situation. He was in hiding, and needed to stay out of sight. As a new arrival in a small town, he needed to head off curiosity about who he was. It was a fine line, that balance between the fiction of cordiality and the fact of distance. The experience that suited him so well for disappearing into shadows little equipped him for complex social interactions. And she… He couldn't decide whether she was in fact an asset, as his commander had insisted, or a liability. Idly, he wondered why she'd agreed to come with him. He was surprised to find that he'd not examined her motivations before.

The thought caught at his mind, and he picked at it. As he remembered the conversation that night in his room—Katsura laying out his plan against the day they would need to go into hiding, and Tomoe kneeling mutely behind him—he remembered now that he'd wondered in passing how she was taking to this idea. He'd glanced at her face, and, though it was impassive and correct, she'd seemed almost eager. At the time, he'd put it down to her curious attachment to him, but now he wasn't so sure. He'd never been able to sense women in the same way he could men; he'd had to rely on conjecture for the most part.

This was never more true than with this woman. Her attentions were inexplicable, her past a mystery, and although it was true that she'd had no real option but acquiescence to Katsura's "request," her lack of resistance—or rather, her keenness, now that he focused on it—had been, both then and now, puzzling. He didn't like puzzles.

A watery crash brought him back, and he jumped up just as the rock holding one edge of the basket rolled down and away. In a flash, he was in the water, splashing through, heedless of his now-nearly-dry clothing, to rescue his catch before it could be swept downstream. He caught up the trap with its slippery, wriggling contents, and clasped it to his chest, freezing cold water streaming down his front. Panting and dripping, he folded the trap over on itself and tied the straggling ends together. He held it up and peered at his writhing prisoners. Three! And that one is a good size!

He slogged his way back to dry land, soaked again, and suddenly starving. He donned his sandals, then, reinserting his sword into his obi, picked up the basket and swung it over his shoulder. Eagerly anticipating the crunch of crispy skin and tender white flesh, he headed straight down the hill toward the house. Perhaps this exile wouldn't be so bad.


	8. 6: Sweeping Up

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 6: Sweeping Up

 _In which Tomoe keeps house._

She spent most of her many hours alone in the cottage putting it in order.

When they'd first arrived, and he'd shoved aside the heavy wooden door and they both peered in, she almost whimpered in dismay. No shoji here, no entryway, no space for even the meanest greeting display or flower arrangement. _I suppose we won't be having visitors_. The entire cottage was a single room, no more than nine and a half tatami. He stood next to her in the doorway, and she was acutely aware of his silence. She never knew what he was thinking.

He'd squatted down, brushed his fingertips over the ancient tatami mat and held them up to show her the coating of soft gray dust, then stood and stepped across the threshold. The late afternoon sun slanting in through the tiny window in the west wall caught the swirls of dust he stirred up and fired the tips of his hair to a coppery red. She'd watched him as he circled the room once, opening the doors of the cabinet shoved crookedly into one corner, testing the chains and hooks over the firepit in the middle of the floor, pulling away from the back wall the large painted screen—faded and worn, the paper peeling at the top right corner—to peer behind it. Those futon stacked under the window… Would they be sleeping on those limp, faded things?

He came to rest in front of her where she still stood outside the door, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and said, "It's not so bad." She was so surprised—she'd never heard his voice sound like this, gentle, almost warm—that the lump in her throat melted, and her face relaxed into a small smile. He did not smile, but held her gaze for a moment, and then said, "It's late and you must be hungry. I'll fetch in water for rice."

Although the daughter of a samurai family, their circumstances had dwindled over the generations, and she'd learned as a young girl how to keep house, stock a kitchen, and provide nutritious and tasty meals with limited resources. She feared, however, that even her considerable abilities would be tested by their primitive situation. To her relief, however, she found that the safe-house had been supplied with most of what they needed to live, at least for a time. There were small sacks of rice and of red beans, boxes of dried fish, a jar of tea leaves and others of pickled vegetables, little wooden boxes with basic spices and herbs, kitchen wares, cleaning cloths. Candles. A broom.

He had been right. It wasn't so bad.

In spite of that, as she swept the floor, her hair tied up in a cloth, she thought about her young brother and her sad father. About her lost beloved. She bit her lip, and the rising dust caught in the tears trembling in the hollows of her lower lids.

Nothing was as she'd expected. Nothing had worked out as she'd planned. Her heart broke anew whenever she recalled that day she'd left her father's house.

 _Akira was dead. She didn't know it, but she was part dead now, too._

 _"It is her fault, all her fault!" "I heard her father arranged the match only to erase a debt." "She never deserved him—"_

 _She hadn't left her room in days, but remained kneeling before her personal shrine for hours at a time, creeping out her door in the dead of night to the interior courtyard to refresh the greens for the altar. They were wrong—she had loved him. And he, she believed, her. But their shared reserve had worked against them. Having little experience with the language of love, they spoke only the words they knew. In the end, they said what they could, instead of what they wanted to. They had never confessed their love to each other._

 _News of her loss had spread quickly, and her father's house soon filled with neighbor women and Kiyosato family females, all claiming to be there to help out. They did little but drink tea and gossip._

 _"I think Akira only left to try for a position with more stature. Just to please her!" "Don't be ridiculous! Because her family is so poor, he had to increase his income." "Do you think so?" "Either that, or he wanted to get away from such a girl. I've known her all her life, you know!" "All that time outdoors, playing with her brother in the woods, wearing boys' clothes—! For goodness sake, she's almost nineteen! What kind of a wife would she make as she is?"_

 _Gales of giggles, shushed to snickers. They no longer even pretended discretion, but would gather in the room right next to hers, and they made no attempt to muffle their voices._

 _In her heartache, none of this mattered to her. Even when Enishi would sneak in to her when no one was looking, in spite of orders to leave her alone in her grief—and besides he was too old to spend so much time in the company of women, sister or no—she couldn't bring herself to respond to him._

 _"Sister, come out with me!" She didn't even glance at him. Kneeling behind her, he fell against her back and gripped her shoulders with his small hands. "Please, sister—! Why are you being like this?" She could feel his hot tears on the nape of her neck, his sweaty palms crumpling the sleeves of her kimono. But this all seemed to be happening at a great distance, and, after a time, she would be alone again._

 _One day, she came to herself in a great quiet. The house seemed empty. Rising cautiously to her feet, she put an ear to the rice paper of the shoji and listened intently. Not a sound. She slid open her door, and looked up and down the hall, then stepped out onto the polished planks. In profound silence, she glided through the rooms of her own house like the ghost that she had become, until she realized that—Finally!—the visitors had gone. Her father must be away on some business, and Enishi, no doubt, was out in his beloved woods, hunting, or perhaps just wandering. She stood for a time in the main room, reveling in her solitude._

 _In the freedom of tranquility, her mind seemed to awaken. The fog of grief and confusion and shame lifted, and she straightened, and drew the clear air deep into her lungs, for the first time in what seemed like years. Her muscles released their tension. She could think again._

 _The garden must be in a state… She went back to her room, changed into her "boys' clothes"—No one to see me now!—and slipped out into the garden behind the house. She slid open the heavy door to their storehouse. Her entry stirred up the fine dust on surfaces as she passed, and it rose into a mist, casting the light from the windows high along the walls into shafts of swirling, twinkling powder. The light only served to deepen the shadows, but they couldn't hide her father's worktable. In the old days, it was customary to plant a Paulownia tree when a baby girl was born. Her father had celebrated her birth with this custom, and had felled her tree the very day after the announcement of her betrothal to Akira. Working on it—the concentration required, the careful attention to detail—seemed to be his only escape from his grief over his lost wife. And then Akira was murdered, and the dresser sat half-made, abandoned by her double-sad father. She fingered the beautiful joints of the two finished drawers, and ran her hand along the carving on the corners of the unattached top where it leaned against the worktable. She sighed and left it, passing shelves loaded with rice bags piled high and cartons of root vegetables until she reached her mother's gardening cabinet. She retrieved the woven bamboo basket she used for weeds and trimmings. The hand hoe and trowel were a little rusty, so she took the time to oil them. "Never neglect your tools, daughter. They can serve you only as well as you serve them." When she emerged into the blazing day, the sun blinded her, so that she at first missed the man standing in the shed's shadow._

 _"Girl."_

 _She whirled around to the source of the voice, staggering and dropping her basket and tools, startled almost out of breath. "Wh-Who are you?" she stammered out at last, and then, gasping for air against the sudden tightness in her chest, "What are you doing here? My father is away now." She glanced from side to side, as if she might see him standing there, even now coming forward to rescue her. She edged away from him toward the house, hoping he would take the hint. Her voice shook, but she tried to control it. "Please come back when he returns."_

 _He ignored all this. "Tell me this. Did you love your Akira?" He growled more than spoke, and he pitched his voice low so that it did not carry. No one but she could have heard him, not even someone standing in the door to her home, her sanctuary that was just that much too far away._

 _If his sudden appearance had not been enough to frighten her out of her wits, his physical aspect took care of the rest: huge frame, as broad across the chest as a bear, and nearly as tall. Massive shoulders and muscular arms. Legs like tree trunks. A face carved from stone with sharply defined beard and mustache, and heavy eyebrows above fierce, dark eyes that held her fast in their gaze._

 _He rose and closed the distance between them with the speed and grace of a stalking tiger. Frozen in place, like a wounded prey, she knew that even if she'd had her kaiken—foolish Yukishiro!—she wouldn't have been able to draw it. One hand crept up to her throat as he approached. The other arm hugged herself across her obi, across her absent weapon._

 _"Answer me. Did you love Kiyosato?" She managed a tiny, jerky nod. Her mouth was too dry to speak, but his manner eased a little at her response. He reached out a massive paw and closed it over her upper arm. "Come, girl. You are in no danger." He guided her back to the shed, to the bench that stood in its shadow, and sat her down on it as easily as if she had been a doll. He stood before her with his arms crossed across his chest, his face stern and impassive._

 _She struggled to control her breathing, and after a moment, she managed to whisper, "What do you want with me?"_

 _"Your family has been dishonored. You have been dishonored. Your father is old and dispirited. Your brother, still a child. There is no one to right your wrong."_

 _Her heart clutched at all this. She had loved Akira—loved him still, despite what everyone, perhaps even Akira himself, believed—and her devastation at losing him was only compounded by the knowledge of the weakness of their family. She hid her face in her hands and wept._

 _The man's stance softened, and he reached into the front of his shirt, pulling out a square of silk. As he offered it to her, he said, "We can help you."_

 _She took a deep, ragged breath and lowered her hands. Sniffling, she searched his face, then reached out and took the cloth. Dabbing at her cheeks and eyes with it, she asked, "How?" She knew that Akira had been the victim of a sneak attack at night, but no one had been able to tell her anything more. And even if she did find out who had murdered him, she doubted a judge would care to do anything about it._

 _His next words shocked her. "We know your wronger, and we want him dead as much as you do."_

 _She stared at him open-mouthed for a moment. "You know—? But… How? Who are you? Who is 'we'?" Something occurred to her, and she added, "How do you even come to be here today?"_

 _He paused before answering, and sat down next to her. The bench creaked as it took his weight, and her hand flew down to grip the edge nearest her thigh. "We watch you. And your family." She remembered quiet, intimate days spent in anonymous serenity, and felt betrayed by them, as if they had been fraudulent, or had belonged to someone else. "We have our methods, and they don't concern you. We want you to get close to this assassin. Report to us his movements, his activities. That's all. We will do the rest." He leaned back against the shed's wall and crossed one knee over the other, and she thought the bench would collapse. "You must be the one to find him. We know he is in the City, and we think he belongs to the Choshu clan, but we haven't been able to track him down."_

 _"Me?" Astonished, she let her mouth hang open. "How is it possible that I could find him when you can't?"_

 _"We believe we are known to his handlers. The task needs someone who will not be suspected. Someone unaffiliated. Someone…" He cleared his throat. "…someone innocent." His keen eyes peered at her. "Doors will open to you that will shut us out."_

 _"But…" She couldn't find words for her objections. She knew no one in Kyoto. Her life had been only about family, and home, and the gentle pursuits of a fading samurai line. She wouldn't even know how to find lodging. "I wouldn't even know how to find lodging," she finally managed to bleat._

 _"We have taken care of that. We will support you until you find him."_

 _"You want me to go to the City? And live there? How do I… how would I find him? And when I tell Fath—"_

 _He broke in, "No! You tell no one! You will think of a story for your family. You will go to Kyoto." His ferocity had returned, and he leaned in close to her, his hot breath steaming against her eyes. "His organization has many ears, and your discovery will mean not only the failure of our objectives, but death for you!" He paused, sat up straight again, and added, in a gentle voice that it made her blood run cold, "And your family."_

 _She didn't dare ask whether he meant "from the murderer's organization" or "from us." But she thought for a moment, and a tiny flame flickered in her heart at the thought of avenging her beloved. She returned his gaze with steady, solemn eyes._

 _"Yes."_

 _"Yes?"_

 _"Yes. I will do this." Her ears could hardly believe her mouth, but her heart knew the truth of the matter._

 _The giant took a deep breath, and stood. She seemed to be shrinking, tinier and tinier, before his rising bulk, but her resolve did not waver. She rose, too, and stood very close to him, her head tilted far back to meet his eyes, and asked, "When do I leave?"_

 _"Now. We have arranged for your father to be detained on clan business for one more day. Your brother"—her heart nearly stopped at Enishi's name in his mouth—"is safe. We are… watching over him as he camps." He paused, and she understood that she'd never had a choice. Her legs wobbled, and she sat down heavily. He removed a letter from inside his shirt, and a pouch from inside the waistband of his hakama. "This will sustain you for at least a month. Go to the address on this letter and give it to the proprietress. She will make a room ready for you."_

 _The weight of the purse in her hand was impressive, and she supposed that she would be able to ask directions to the unfamiliar address once she arrived at the City's gates. "Am I allowed to leave a note?"_

 _"Of course you will leave a note!" He snorted. "Make it good. We can't have anyone coming to rescue you."_

 _She calculated that it was now or never, so she gathered her courage. "Please. Can't you tell me who you are? Why you want this murderer dead, too?"_

 _He seemed to consider that, and finally said, "You may know my name. I am called Tatsumi. Field Marshal of the Yaminobu. We serve our shogun." He paused, then, "And we have lost more to him than you have." There was pain in his voice that she recognized. He stepped back a pace and made a slight bow. Turning to go, he said over his shoulder, "We will contact you." He covered the distance to the garden gate in a few long strides, and swung it open. With his hand already on the latch, he turned back to face her, and said, "Now you will know his name. Himura Kenshin." And he was gone._

 _Alone now in her empty and silent garden, she tried to feel herself again. She wasn't sure whether she was glad he was gone. Yes, the frightening interview was over, but now something new—and uncertain—was beginning._

 _Returning to her room, she took out her writing set and crafted a note to her father, telling him that she was leaving for the City to find work, and would send money home. She begged him to allow her to help the family in this small way. This she knew he would do. Tatsumi had been right about her father's weakened spirit. As much as she loved him, she could see that his wife's death had broken him. Their family's bonds were very nearly shattered, and their financial situation was desperate. With a heart not quite as heavy as perhaps it should have been, she took the note to his room and tucked it into his futon. She looked around the room and breathed in its air: It smelled of him, his hair oil, the camellias he favored, now wilting from neglect in the vase on his writing desk, his tobacco. She closed her eyes to seal these things in her memory._

 _She left a note for her brother, as well. "Take care of Father until I return."_

 _After a quick meal of dried fish and pickled vegetables, she packed a small bag with yukata, zori, comb, writing set, and the small pot of soft wax that smelled of the flower of the white plum. She placed her diary on top, checking, as she always did, that Akira's final letter was safely tucked into the back cover. She changed out of her trousers and top—No more gardening for me!—and into her best kimono. Into the front of her kimono she tucked the purse from Tatsumi and the letter of introduction. Then she gathered her bag, her favorite shawl, and her parasol. As she slid open the door that led to the outside world, her eye fell on the gift her father had given her at the bone-picking ceremony after her mother's cremation: her mother's kaiken in its unadorned sheath. The knife had survived the fire surprisingly unscathed except for its finish, and she'd later had it re-finished to its original deep blue. Tucking the small dagger into the fold of her obi, she stepped out into the mid-day sun to begin her journey._

 _She looked back one last time at her home and whispered, "Himura. Himura Kenshin."_

And now she found herself living in this tiny, ignominious cottage purposed only for cowards who could think of nothing better than to hide. It was not her house. It was not even her "husband's." Again, she felt mired in indecision and impotence, trapped in the machinations of others and the workings of fate.


	9. 7: To Market, To Market

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 7: To Market, To Market

 _In which the newlyweds brave the crowds._

It was time.

They'd arrived two weeks ago, and to delay longer would seem odd to the villagers—normal provisions, he knew, didn't keep as long as soldier rations. Most people went to market several times a month. As it was, the specious pretext of "honeymooners" could use some buttressing.

He tied his hair into a bun, as Ōkami had shown him, and fitted the hat she had given him close down over his head. As he tied it securely, he spoke without looking at her.

"Remember, we are not planning to remain here, but are merely waiting for my uncle's household to make room for us. Please do not obligate us to anyone in any way."

"I understand."

He would have preferred to have supplied for them entirely through hunting and fishing, and the occasional bale of rice from headquarters, but he realized that even a bachelor—an ordinary one, at any rate—would have to come to town occasionally.

 _Tch! What inconvenience._

The trail was steep, and he led the way, as much to prevent her falling as from custom. Once he braced himself as her fingertips pressed suddenly on his shoulder, and he could hear her footsteps uneven and hesitant on the path behind him. She had insisted they must dress in their good clothes to go into town. It made no difference to him—all his clothes were styled for action—but her stylish kimono and city geta nearly hobbled her on the rough path. He slowed his pace.

The market center was indeed crowded, and they blended well into the crowd. The festive atmosphere lightened his mood in spite of himself. It made him remember the day, back in the City, that Ōkami had ordered him to accompany the girls she sent out for supplies.

 _"Go with them. Watch out for them." He started to object, but she cut him off. "Think of yourself as a heavyweight attendant. I'm sending all of them because we are low on almost everything, and I'm sending you because I don't want any trouble." She gave him a look, and said, "Besides, you need to get out, too. In the sun." He could tell she'd brook no argument. Besides, he felt obligated. Ōkami went out of her way to accommodate his idiosyncrasies. She'd assigned a girl to provide him meals on his curious schedule, and to do his laundry and clean his room, although he could certainly have taken care of those last tasks himself. He could have managed even his own meals, had he been allowed a pot and a flame._

 _The noise and bustle had been an adjustment for him—he'd rarely been among crowds except under cover of darkness, and with a target to boot—but he soon realized that no one was paying any attention to him, that he was relatively invisible with his large bowl-shaped hat covering the thick bundle of red hair that she'd tied up for him into a high, hidden bun. The girls—his girl was not among them, and he only now wondered why Ōkami had kept her back—were excited to be out together, giggling and gossiping, and he tagged along solemnly, counting and re-counting the half-dozen or so as they flitted from vendor to vendor. Their happy chatter and the colorful turmoil of the marketplace reminded him of his trips to town with his master, and he felt his spirits rise. The enticing aroma of ramen, and the neat rows of beautifully crafted castella cakes, shaped as fruit or flowers or baby animals—he found it all to be surprisingly pleasant._

 _At one point, he saw them whispering together in a huddle and glancing at him. Shortly afterward, one of the girls lingered behind the others at the flower seller's, and he could tell she wanted to talk with him. He waited for her to speak. Hesitantly, she greeted him, "Good morning, Himura-san."_

 _"Good morning, —" He realized he didn't know her name. He didn't know any of their names. He had only kept count. "Good morning," he repeated awkwardly._

 _"I_ … _I mean, we_ … _I mean, all of us are very grateful to you for taking care of us. We can't usually come out together. I haven't been out of the inn for over a month!" She caught herself, then said, "Please take one of these." Embarrassment deepening her bow, she held out the unfolded paper containing a pile of taiyaki with both hands._

 _His impulse was to refuse, but he knew she'd been sent by the rest of them for just this purpose. He wished he knew her name. It was rude to speak to her like this._

 _He plucked off the one on the top of the pile. "Thank you very much." Biting down through the soft, fish-shaped cake into the sweet red bean filling, he closed his eyes with the intensity of the memory:_ Shishou loves these.

 _That evening, he asked Ōkami why she'd picked him as guard. She just looked down at him with her long, cool eyes and said, "Why do you ask?" Taken aback by such a pointed question, he answered without thinking, "I enjoyed it." She didn't change expression, but after a small nod, she turned and walked away. As he watched her slide down the hallway away from him, he realized he'd been played, though he couldn't imagine to what end. Surprisingly, he didn't mind. He didn't even mind that he felt happier for a few hours._

Today, here in the village by the lake, he chose which stalls they visited, and she kept close by his side. She spoke softly to each vendor as he kept a surreptitious eye on the crowd around them, and though he'd feared her inexperience would cost them, somehow her gentleness brought out equally gentle—and sometimes generous—responses, and they ended up spending less than he'd allowed. He carried their purchases, which were both bulky and heavy.

He looked at her appraisingly, re-evaluating what he saw. The small, pale face, always composed; the polished, jet-black hair, arranged in a modest queue; the expensive but well-worn kimono—the collar had already been turned once, he could tell that, now that he really looked. Bad times after good? It was a common tale. A certain steeliness in the eyes, easy to miss since she kept her face tilted down a degree or two. Well-bred. It had never occurred to him to wonder what had brought her to the City like that—alone and unprotected.

"You did well."

"Thank you." She seemed pleased by his praise, and he watched with curiosity as she fidgeted with the handle of her purse, her glance darting from stall to stall. "Do you want to go back right away? Perhaps you'd like a paper of pickled plums, or a skewer of mochi balls?" She gestured toward a stall close to the water. "Over there, they are serving them with sesame seeds in the sauce, even though it's not the season for it."

He considered that. It might indeed be a good idea to seem a bit more social. The sun was high in the sky, and the aromas wafting from the outdoor grills and steamers made his stomach growl. It was a beautiful day, and no one seemed to be paying them any undue attention. Why shouldn't they enjoy themselves?

He smiled at her, feeling expansive. "Yes. Let's eat before we head home." He thought he had seen a vendor selling nikuman, and these steamed, savory, meat-filled buns were a particular favorite of his. Just the thought of them made his mouth water and put a spring in his step.

Under a stand of willows at the edge of the market stalls stood a cluster of community-style tables lined with benches. He stopped and, cocking his head sharply, looked between her and the tables. The smallest suggestion of a smile quirked the corners of his mouth. Ignoring her baffled look, he took her hand and led her to one of the tables that had room enough for two more. He checked the sun's angle to make sure she wouldn't have the sun in her eyes, then gestured to a seat in the dappled shade. When she just stood there, uncomprehending, he put both hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her down onto the bench. Under cover of a playful little bow, he lifted her hand and smoothly removed their money purse from her wrist. With what might have passed for levity in someone else, he said, "Please rest here, my lady. I will procure a meal for us."

He turned away and strode eagerly back toward the stalls. Had he been just a little less quick, he might have noticed her flushed cheeks, and seen her touch her wrist in wonder.


	10. 8: Tomoe Makes a Small Mistake…

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 8: Tomoe Makes a Small Mistake…

 _In which Tomoe enjoys some company but regrets her shoes._

How good it had felt to be among people again!

She had never much needed the company of people, but these last weeks in the cabin… His silence, his absence. Her invisibility. She'd not realized how dry and empty she'd become until they had emerged from their path onto the main street and been swallowed up by the current of the crowd. Children running and shrieking, shopkeepers and customers quibbling, dogs barking, carts rumbling, horses' hooves clopping… Oh! She felt like a sponge plopped into a rushing river!

She found herself smiling at everyone, and approached each merchant with tenderness and something like gratitude, simply for the fact of their meeting her eyes and speaking with her. She bought a packet of sweets, and used them to make secret moments between herself and random children, just to touch someone else's skin.

Even he seemed to have caught the gay spirit of the town, smiling at her, and agreeing to sit and eat together in public.

All the way home, as she struggled up the rocky path—next time, she would take his advice about shoes, at least—she turned these treasures over in her mind, fondling them and storing them against the future.


	11. 9: …But Has a Good Idea

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 9: …But Has a Good Idea

 _In which Tomoe suggests a garden._

He tried not to admit it, but the thought wouldn't leave him alone: _That was a mistake!_

What had come over him? The gaiety of the marketplace, the fine day, the tantalizing aromas of the food stalls. Her hand, warm and trusting on his shoulder, steadying herself as they'd made their way down the hill. The way her black hair had rippled in the sunlight like a slow brook in a meadow. Her voice, low and gentle as she spoke with the vendors or knelt down to a small child. Her dark lashes and pale cheeks in the breeze-stirred shade of the trees as they'd sat together, pretending to be husband and wife. Each time he remembered, a wave of giddiness washed over him, dizzy like he was falling. He tried not to think these thoughts. They caught at his breath and made his stomach flutter.

In the days since, he had tried to undo it all. He distanced himself from her. He spent more time on patrol. He avoided conversation. He contrived not to look at her. Not more than necessary, at any rate. It wasn't helping.

This evening, as she set before him his meal of grilled pike and rice, she apologized. "I'm sorry." He looked up, puzzled, and she continued, "I don't have daikon, so the fish is bland."

"No, it's fine." And it was. She was a good cook, although he hadn't noticed it before now. And he wondered where she'd learned, if she'd known how before she came to work for Ōkami.

"Do you think we could grow our own? There seems to be space for a garden…" She gestured toward the bare, ragged patch of earth outside the door.

He remembered sunny days in a clearing near an icy waterfall, and a tiny plot of plants he had been given to tend on his own. It had seemed gigantic to his small self, and he'd taken serious responsibility for it. He usually avoided thinking about those days with his master in the cramped, drafty hut beside the freezing river that flowed from that roaring waterfall, about the incessant lessons, the growing excitement, the fulfillment that had been his, for the first time in his life, in learning. About the only father he could remember. "Think of the past only as it gives you pleasure." His master's words seemed to him now more like portent than advice. He would heed them. He turned his mind away from what could never return.

"Perhaps we could. The soil may be good here." He turned his face slightly away. "I used to know something about gardening."

They finished their meal in silence, and while he sat near the fire inspecting and polishing his sword, and not watching her, she busied herself with evening chores: scrubbed their bowls with sand from the firepit, stacked their few utensils and pots in a corner, retrieved a log big enough to last the night and re-laid the fire, banking it so the coals would be ready in the morning.

Once she had put the house in order, she retreated behind the screen. He had moved it and arranged it to create a small space for her personal use. He could hear the silky sounds of her clothing as she removed and folded her kimono and undergarments, and the whisper of her comb through her hair. He didn't think about how it would feel between his rough fingers. He saw her candle go out, and she reappeared in the main room, her arms full with the futon and quilt. She waited while he sheathed and set aside his sword, then he rose and relieved her of her bundle. He was careful to touch only the bedding. He shook it out and laid it out on the floor close to the fire, square with the fire's bed.

"Thank you."

He looked at her, then stepped away to allow her to settle herself under the quilt, and then positioned himself in his corner. But when he turned his face back to the room, he saw she was still standing in the same spot. He raised his eyes to her face. He could feel himself slipping, meeting those dark, intense eyes, and he guarded himself against what she might say.

"Tomorrow, you could begin turning the soil. I would be happy to go into the village and purchase some seeds and starts for the garden."

Oh. It was only that.

He thought about the idea. He knew that women often did a family's food marketing alone, and, since the two of them had already appeared in the village together, he judged that the inhabitants would recognize her as part of "the new couple on the hill." Her solitary trip would not arouse undue curiosity. He nodded his assent and turned back to his corner.

As the fire died down, and the air in the room cooled, he let his mind wander back over other days, in other gardens. Other gardens on other mountainsides, and even older gardens worked alongside family and neighbors, now the mistiest of memories. He hadn't for many years tackled the problem of limited sunlight hours on a plot of land surrounded by trees as tall as ten men and as dense as weeds, nor of how best to orient and shape the rows to retain the most water and prevent erosive run-off. Doing so now felt like retrieving old, faded muscle memory. In the neglected garden, he had seen the ghosts of previous furrows and, recalling the amateur spacing and orientation, he felt a gardener's "itch": He knew he could create something good and strong out of that weak mess.

Clearing the saplings that lined the eastern edge of the plot would give good sun exposure most of the day, and only a few days' work would have the rows in much better shape. He was feeling more himself now, his head filled with furrow depths, planting schedules, and pest control schemes. Already he could feel which muscles would be sore tomorrow evening. Yes, the garden would be a good project. And the extra produce would mean fewer trips into town, decreasing contact with outsiders and reducing hazardous conversations and questions. It would help guard against betrayal.


	12. 10: Insomnia

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 10: Insomnia

 _In which Tomoe pushes the start of the garden,  
and struggles with sleep._

She couldn't decide which she found more unsettling: his indifference or his trust.

By the time they'd arrived home from that first day in the market, he was silent and withdrawn again. The sharp-eyed, brooding soldier had vanished before her eyes to be replaced in an instant by a boy, a lighthearted, teasing boy, who had laughed and smiled and seemed much too young for the picture she kept in her mind. Much too young for the life he'd been leading. It had caught her off-guard. Then the boy disappeared, and almost a week had passed, and in that time he'd spoken little beyond what was compelled by his formal, perfect, irritating manners, and that only during the few hours he'd remained in the cabin during the day.

She was constantly out of step with him, unable to keep up with—much less predict—his changes in mood, infuriated at herself when she responded reflexively, even eagerly, on the rare occasions when he did smile, or spoke lightly of daily chores and plans. Annoyed by how empty she felt when he acted as though she weren't there. By how his moods set the tone for their time together. She needed to get away from him. Just for a time. She had to think, to regain her grip on herself.

Tonight, she determined that this evening would have some of her own self in it. For once, he would do the responding! Not only did she want to make her presence felt, she also wanted, needed, to set a precedent. Except for the few children in the marketplace, she'd spoken with no outsider—not Katsura, not the Yaminobu—since their arrival a month ago, and she knew that there could be no contact when he was anywhere around. This was her part to arrange. As she prepared their dinner, she planned how to broach the subject.

"If I go into town tomorrow, I could bring back some seedlings." She caught herself—she'd started out too hard, too fast—and steadied her voice. She clasped her hands in front of herself to still them. "By the time I return, you could have ready an area to plant."

His hesitation almost undid her. Her breath came tight, and she was sure he could see the nervous warmth of her skin. But by the time he'd agreed, she'd collected herself enough to make a passable response. Her voice was even and steady. "I'll leave in the morning after breakfast."

Then she'd turned away to kneel at the edge of the futon, fussing with the obi of her yukata, her head bowed to hide her shaking hands and damp forehead. She could tell that, again, it was going to take her a long time to fall asleep. Perhaps even as long as that first evening in the cottage, their first night together.

 _As darkness fell and she began to run out of evening chores, she steeled herself for what was surely to come. She was a wife now, and the wife of a hardened soldier at that. No dowry had exchanged hands, so the union carried none of the usual contractual obligation that would have ensured her good treatment. He was young and strong, and they were alone, and there was no one to hold him to decent, much less honorable, behavior. She knew well the reputation of the Choshu soldiers—had seen evidence enough of it at headquarters, and had heard the other girls talk—but even so she was determined not to shrink from whatever their time together—their nights together—might bring her. She would stay her course, the course that would lead her to her justice._

 _Still, she must be careful. She couldn't afford to risk her position. It was necessary that he believe her harmless. Any suspicion would mean not only her probable instant execution, but—and this was the more intolerable—the utter failure of her mission. So she changed into her yukata, and reluctantly left her kaiken hidden among the folds of her kimono. Now would not be the time. She extinguished her candle and stepped out from behind the screen, out from her girlhood and into her marriage._

 _As her eyes adjusted to the sudden dimness, she realized with a small shock of relief that the futon was empty. While she was changing, he must have slipped out on a patrol round. Then a flash in the far corner caught her eye, and she saw him. He was sitting up against the wall the dark corner across from the door, and she'd missed him. It wasn't until he had raised his eyes to hers, and they caught and flared in the firelight, that she had even guessed that he was still in the house. His gaze, shining from within the darkness, turned her heart to stone._

 _Her voice was small in the space between them. "Husband—"_

 _"Rest well, Yukishiro-san."_

 _Then he turned his attention to the door, and she realized how this would go. Not only was she safe, she was as good as invisible to him. He'd not even addressed her as a married woman, much less as his own wife. She dismissed the vague sense of disappointment._

She lay quiet and still, but her mind raced. The more time they spent together, the less well she knew him. He still prowled endlessly, and he rarely spoke unless she herself initiated conversation, but she couldn't put out of her mind how proud—and vulnerable—he seemed when he brought in their evening's fish, reminding her of her little brother when he, too, would bring her a special find from the forest floor for her to coo over. Kenshin would search her face when he handed over the strange, still-soggy traps, and she couldn't decide whether he was hoping to please her, although the very idea was ludicrous, or whether he was testing her. She knew she felt examined. Always felt that he was waiting for something in particular from her.

It made her remember something she'd tried to put out of her mind: that day in the market, when he'd touched her hand and brought her something to eat, and they had sat together with the sun on their backs and her skin still tingling from the roughness of his calloused fingers and her woman's heart thudding under his steady gaze. Anyone watching them would certainly have believed them to be the newly married couple they pretended, and probably a love-match at that! Her pulse quickened at the memory, and she blushed at her inconstancy.

She knew how perceptive he was, sometimes almost sure he was actually reading her mind, and she feared that he was reading her now. She shouldn't be thinking like this at all. If he were to detect her unsteadiness around him, that alone might make him look at her with suspicion. With difficulty, she paced her breathing and tried to calm her thoughts.

She could feel that he was still awake— _Of course he is, because I still am!_ —and knew that he would be awake long into the darkness. She turned fiercely onto her side, away from him, and squeezed her eyes shut tight, willing her mind blank. _That garden might a good idea at that. At least he will be doing something_ … _normal!_


	13. 11: Sleeping with Friends

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 11: Sleeping with Friends

 _In which Tomoe and Kenshin sleep together._

Once, deep in the night, she woke from a dreamless sleep. The fire's flames had died hours ago, and the cabin was chilly. Moonlight trickled through cracks in the window planks, and stark streaks sliced the dense gloom, painting the floor with a cold silver light. As her eyes adjusted to the contrast, she could make out the sleeping coals against the white sand of the firepit. Beyond it, blackness seemed to seep out of the farthest corner.

A darker shadow, deep in that corner. A form so vague that she couldn't be quite sure… Then a cloud moved, and the light brightened, and she saw him. He seemed to be asleep. Even though she had awakened, he was asleep. He was sitting against the wall as was his habit, his left arm draped around his sword where it leaned against his shoulder, his chin resting on his chest. His head rose and fell with the deep, slow rhythm of the breath of true slumber. The silvery light washed over him, a study in black and gray, his face as pale as hers, his hair dark, making him look almost like a normal person.

In the heavy silence, she watched him. The last time she'd seen him asleep had been at the Kohagi-ya, but this was different. He was relaxed and resting, not simply marking time. Ribbons of moonlight slid along the bare floor as the stars wheeled. Then the clouds shifted, the night closed in, and sleep folded itself around her.

* * *

He didn't need to wake to know that she had. The part of his mind that always watched did so now. But another part, a new part, told a different story. This was no enemy. Rather, she was a part of his life. This new mind whispered comfort and safety. Wrapped him in warmth, kept him from waking.

And so they slept.


	14. 12: The Ways of Deceit

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 12: The Ways of Deceit

 _In which Tomoe watches Kenshin work the earth._

No matter how late she retired, he retired later; no matter how early she rose, he was already up. She would waken to find the cabin's door open, and his corner empty. Sometimes she would rise—she tried to be quiet though she suspected by now that he knew her every move almost before she made it—pad to the door, and peek out across the porch. What greeted her never varied: night insects silent, birds not yet taken the day. The eastern sky still dark, the bedewed garden glistening silver under the setting moon. Across the bare wooden planks from her, so much a part of the scene that he sometimes didn't seem quite human, he would be sitting as still and straight as the post next to him, and his hair loose and wild, black in the colorless dark.

This morning, her fingers trembled a little as she tied back her hair. This would be her first visit to the village alone. Though the way wasn't long, the descent would be steep, and she'd been grateful on the previous trip that he'd been there in front of her on the way down. Her fingers fumbled, and the silk cord slipped out of her hand and fell to the floor behind her. Exasperated, she leaned back and snatched it up, shaking her head at her own skittishness as she worked to undo the useless knot. What was wrong with her? Why was she so jumpy? Where was the girl who'd traveled on foot, alone and blind with grief, from her home to the City? The one who'd received the General in her garden, all alone and, as she remembered it, bravely? How was it that this, this boy—and he was a boy, no more than a handful of years older than her brother—could wreak such havoc with her practiced self-control?

There! Her hair secured low on her neck, she took a deep breath and tugged at the collar of her kimono. She stepped over to the firepit and re-awakened the fire, poking carefully to avoid kicking up ash dust on her clothes, and adding a few sticks so it would catch. She hefted both the kettle and the pot of rice that had been soaking all night—a trick Ōkami had shown her to reduce cooking time when the mess hall began to fill with hordes of hungry soldiers—onto the big hook and swung them out over the awakening flame. While these heated, she dropped a pinch of leaves into each of their tea bowls, then set these and his rice bowl on the food tray. Just before the water boiled, she removed the kettle and filled each cup, watching the leaves swirl and release their green flavor as they steeped. She leaned over them and inhaled the sweet, grassy fragrance. Now the rice was ready, and she scooped a hefty serving into the waiting bowl on the tray, then chose a fat dried fish from the box she kept in the corner of the firepit and draped it over the steaming mound.

She picked up the tray and her cup, and, rising, carried them outside, where she knelt and set the tray down next to the corner post. She sat and watched him with curiosity, swirling her cup in slow circles. Now that it was light, he was walking the rows, squatting every now and then to scoop up a handful of earth. He would examine it in his palm, bring it up to inhale its scent, crumble it between his fingers. Move to another spot, pull up a weed, inspect its roots, turn over its leaves.

He was dressed differently today, and that surprised her. No hakama and kimono, just a pair of narrow-legged field trousers and a farmer's simple wrapped top from the supplies they'd found when they first arrived. _They suit him. He looks_ … _at home._

She sipped her tea, watching him. ' _I used to know something about gardening.'_ An assassin who gardened. She'd never seen him so much as glance at the garden at the inn. She'd never wondered about the life that had led him here.

She stood and stepped back into the house. She arranged her purple scarf around her shoulders and picked up her purse, checking its contents: the string of coins he'd given her for today's shopping—she kept hidden the remains of what Tatsumi had given her—the list, the wallet containing her papers, the string bag in which to carry her purchases. Peering out the small window that gave on to her private corner, she could see that he was already hard at work. Although it was still nippy in the shadows, his top now lay neatly folded at the edge of the porch. He was facing away from her, swinging the hoe above his head and back down with steady, sure strokes. Dressed in these simple clothes, without the fullness of hakama and kimono to overwhelm his slight figure, he looked less like a boy, more like a man. Less like a demon. He'd tied his hair low on his neck, and strands of it clung to his already-damp shoulders and back glistening in the bright morning sun. She hung her purse over one wrist, then reached under the folds of the stacked futon. Her fingers detected the smooth, hard surface of her kaiken's sheath. _No, better leave it._

She stepped out through the door into the sunshine, lifting her hand to shade her eyes as she squinted toward his figure. He looked up, then set down his hoe and picked his way across the rough rows, brushing his hands off against his hips. He seemed not to notice the tray at the edge of the porch.

"I could come with you."

"No. The seedlings will need to go right into prepared ground."

He glanced back at the ragged expanse of weeds that awaited him. "Yes. You are right." He paused and looked at her for a moment in that flat, intense way he had that mystified her, then seemed to come to a decision. "I will come after you if you are not back by the time the sun is on its way down."

 _Oh, no!_ She struggled to keep her composure. "Please don't worry. I will be quite safe."

"You do not know that." But he turned back to the garden in acceptance.

Relieved, she raised her voice a little to call after him softly, "Thank you." But she didn't feel grateful. Instead, she felt trapped. With a cold dread, she realized that he was capable of watching her not just closely, but with a perception that could prevent her making the slightest move against him, if he didn't kill her outright.

She was glad to be going to the village today, relieved to get a break from this place of silence and suspicion. So why was she still standing here? Still watching him swing his hoe and dig it deep into the earth. Watching the muscles in his back, his arms, his shoulders ripple under the smooth, pale skin—its paleness a testament, she realized with a sharp twinge, to his life under the stars. Pale, that is, except for the single pink line that marred his cheek. She found herself unable—or unwilling—to tear her gaze from his taut, graceful figure.

Again she tried to square her memories of the monster slinking back into the soldier's quarters in the dead of night, covered in blood and with a face like stone, with this energetic youth absorbed in working his land with skill and confidence, red hair flaming in the sun. She blew out an exasperated breath—at herself? At him?

He paused and straightened to look at her, his odd, pale eyes reflecting the blue of the early morning sky. She felt a little dizzy and couldn't seem to catch her breath. Quickly, she turned her back to him, and stepped off the porch onto the path that led down the hill to town. Had she been just a little less quick, she might have seen the curious tilt of his head—or the hint of a puzzled frown—as he watched her go.


	15. 13: Cutting a Way

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 13: Cutting a Way

 _In which Kenshin takes many lives._

This morning he woke earlier than usual—there was much to accomplish before she returned with the starts, and she'd been right. The garden's success would depend on how quickly they could get the tender sprouts into the ground. As he rummaged for tools in the dim interior of the shed, lit only by the setting full moon's blue glow filtering in through the open door, he heard her stirring in her dressing area on the other side of the shared wall. In a moment—by now he expected it—he would smell plum blossoms out of season.

He'd not wanted to wake her, had hoped to be alone with his thoughts and the rising sun and warming earth. But his empty stomach remembered how at headquarters she'd always brought him tea and rice, no matter when he returned from his night's assignment. Sometimes he'd stumble up the stairs to his room, dead on his feet, to find a tray waiting for him, the rice hot and the tea and soup steaming, as though she'd anticipated the exact moment of his return. She left him alone on these mornings, and he'd come to an uneasy acceptance—even a grudging gratitude—for these small attentions.

 _His assignment this night had been close to the inn, and he returned earlier than usual. He'd been out every night without break for ten days, and both his mind and body were exhausted. He could feel weariness in his bones even when hunting, and when he wasn't, he couldn't think straight. He dragged himself up the back stairs to his room—the most remote room in the most remote wing, no occupied neighbors—slid open the shoji and staggered across to the open window, ignoring the tray right inside the door, with its covered bowls and steaming teapot._

 _He collapsed against the stack of books stored under the windowsill and was instantly unconscious. Too fatigued for restful sleep, his dreams were strong. Deep in the grip of yet another one dripping with blood and torn by chaos, the soft edge of an enemy's arrow-feather brushed his cheek. His sword flashed out of its sheath even before he woke, and in two rising steps he pushed his assailant toward the wall, blade edge already touching skin. White skin. Smooth and soft, framed by silky black hair and pale kimono._

 _Shocked awake, he found himself gazing into wide, dark eyes that hadn't yet had the chance to become terrified. With an effort that wrenched his shoulder, his free hand shot out beyond his blade to shove her away from certain death. Away from him. She landed halfway across the room, crumpled on her side. He was left standing where he was, trembling and breathing raggedly as he tried to regain his composure._

 _"I'm sorry," she said as she struggled up off the floor. "It has been so cold, and you sleep so close to the window. I thought to warm you."_

 _He knelt and re-sheathed his sword, using this small kata to calm himself. It wasn't until he'd risen and was standing before her as she still sat on the floor, only then did he feel the whisper weight on his arm, and looked down to find her scarf draped there, caught on the rougher cloth of his kimono. He slid it off and began to fold it into a square._

 _"I am no one for you to be concerned about. Besides…" He handed it back to her where she sat. "…I will not live for long."_

After that day, she had attached herself to him without reserve. Sometimes, he would wake late in the afternoon to find her sitting just inside his door, bent over her needlework. When she saw that he was awake, she would gather her things and leave quietly. He never asked what she was doing there—he didn't consider the room where he slept his own territory—but once, at the edge of sleep, he'd been aware of hushed voices at his doorway, opened just a crack. He'd heard her say to someone in the hallway, "No, Ushiro-san, he's sleeping. Please return later," and then slide the door shut.

He had struggled with this situation. He had come to appreciate these attentions—her timing was uncanny, and some nights only the anticipation of what awaited him in his room dragged him back to the inn at all—but it wouldn't do. He couldn't have it. He couldn't allow anything, or anyone, that might divide his loyalties, cloud his mind. He couldn't have his sword bound. It had taken real work on his part to rebuff her. Finally, he'd almost had to be rude. He didn't like to be rude. He didn't like anything that gave away what he was thinking. He hacked a little more savagely at the hard soil at his feet, beheaded weeds flying from the hoe's blade like green rain.

The sun was high in the sky now, and his griping belly reminded him that he'd neglected the rice and tea she'd brought him before she left. In his mind, he could still see her, kneeling on the porch at the edge of his vision, sipping her tea with perfect stillness. That was something about her that he liked. Her way of moving was controlled, efficient. Disciplined. Like a soldier. When he watched her at her chores, he could feel in his own body what muscles she was using. There were other things, though. There was the way she touched and held things. Her hands, her fingers, seemed to approach an object and then pause imperceptibly, as though requesting permission before making contact. Her face, too, interested him. Like his own, it did not betray her thoughts, but remained composed and smooth under all but the most extreme circumstances. _Circumstances created mostly by me._ His mouth tightened, remembering the times he knew he'd been the cause of distress for her. She didn't deserve that. She was just a girl trying to make her way in the world.

He stopped at the bottom of his swing and leaned on the hoe handle. He was tired. Hungry. Was it possible that gardening was harder work than war? He hefted the hoe over his shoulder and picked his way over the rows to the porch. The tea and rice and soup were cold, but the first swallows flamed his hunger, and he ate ravenously. The soup was salty, and right in his mouth he could feel his depleted body suck it up. When he'd drunk every drop and devoured every grain, his sated belly and the unfiltered sun on his face stilled his mind. He allowed himself to lean against the post and close his eyes. _Just for a moment_ …

The sun was past its zenith when he woke with a start. His skin prickled as the cooling air evaporated the morning's sweat, and he rubbed his eyes with his palms, trying to wake up. He'd not intended to sleep so heavily. _Has she returned?_ No, it was still early. He set aside the small prick of anxiety about her being alone, not under his protection. And he wanted to get a start on clearing the brush on the garden's western edge.

He rose, stretching, and headed back to the lean-to to get that axe he'd seen earlier. It had been buried under a pile of firewood, but when he removed the leather holster, its edge gleamed in the sun. He tested it on a small log lying nearby: The two pieces went flying in opposite directions. Not so sharp as a sword, but sharp enough.

He strode over to the stand of bushes, and stood before them, hands on hips, gauging their condition, their toughness. Where to attack. Saplings, young and weedy, scraggly bushes, reaching for the sun, hoping for a bigger future.

He swung hard against the skinny trunk of the nearest one, low to the ground so as to leave no stump to sprout later. The arc of the axe, its weight in the swing, was satisfying; its thud against the trunk, familiar and disturbing. Dark and bloody images jumped into his mind, unbidden and unwelcome, and a little queasiness in his stomach almost made him stop. But the sun on his back was good, and the smell of the warm earth filled his nostrils, and as his muscles loosened and stretched into the effort, he thought of tomorrow, of the two of them working together to plant seeds and set out seedlings, starting their garden. Starting new life.

As the tender trunks and branches fell and the growing light filtered through the thinning hedge, he whistled a tune from deep within his memory.


	16. 14: Better Safe Than Sorry

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 14: Better Safe Than Sorry

 _In which Iizuka tests the wind._

The tavern was crowded. Filled with smoke, but not quite as hot as it was outside. That's the whole reason he'd ducked in. The evening had failed to bring any relief in the day's heat. This was not his usual drinking place. It wasn't even in his part of town. Matsuo had been boasting about filling his purse at a gambling house where the proprietor owed him a favor, and he swore that just dropping his name would do the same for Iizuka. But when Iizuka arrived, he found the place dark and deserted, with an official notice on the door declaring the occupants had been arrested. Just his luck.

He felt at loose ends, and that always put him in a sour mood. He slunk along one unfamiliar street after another, finding nothing to pique his interest, and then he rounded a corner and this place appeared. Since he'd come out with money to wager, he had plenty to drink with. He was on his second flask, and just now starting to feel it. Customers came and went, but he paid them little attention, intent instead on his drinking.

He'd been feeling antsy for weeks. It felt to him like trouble was brewing, and he couldn't tell from where, and he feared being caught in it. He knew how to watch and wait, and he'd been watching Katsura. Something was up with him. Late-night meetings, more of them than usual. Tension in the Commander's face—he'd left the compound only twice in the last three weeks.

Iizuka's alliance with the revolution was calculated. He couldn't have cared less about the politics of the situation. The Shishi paid well, and the Shishi fed well, and the Shishi gave him both a room and a sword, and that was good enough for him. It was more than anything he'd gotten out of the Bakufu, and what did he care about who made the laws, or ordered the police around—they all harassed him in the same ways for the same things.

So when he heard the codename "Niibori Matsusuke"—so few knew Katsura by it—in a conversation from the two men who'd squeezed themselves into the darkest, most cramped corner, his ears pricked up. If there was going to be a move against Katsura, he wanted to end up on the right side of whatever happened. It took a little digging over the next couple of days, but a couple of lucky breaks later, he'd found his way to a crew he'd never heard of before.

It couldn't hurt to hedge his bets, could it?


	17. 15: Planning for Spring

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 15: Planning for Spring

 _In which Kenshin thinks locally._

 _It's getting late._

He checked the position of the sun. She would only just now be leaving town to head back up the hill, so perhaps it wasn't as late as he'd thought. He would be glad when she was back—then he could stop thinking about her. Stop worrying.

A large pile of branches lay where three hours earlier had stood the break of bushes and shrubs he'd found so troublesome. Now, from east to west, the sun had a clear path of travel over the entire garden. He surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. Even the southern- and western-most rows, the ones closest to the edge of the woods, would have nearly a complete day of sun—the cabbages would develop the deep green color that gave them that intense flavor he craved.

He stepped over to the porch and sat down on its sun-warmed surface. He inspected the axe's blade. The brush and grasses, though young and soft, had already dulled it, and he had been so eager to begin that he hadn't polished it first. _Shishou would have something to say to me about that!_ For once, thinking about his master made him smile. He set the axe down, and rose and entered the cottage. In the gloom of the corner where he slept, he rummaged through his few belongings. Pushing his sword aside, he felt around for his polishing kit.

Back out on the porch, he set the kit down next to the axe and retrieved the water bucket from its place under the roof corner where it caught runoff. The water was murky near the bottom, but there was enough clear at the top to wet the stones. He knelt next to the kit and unfolded it. Checking the blade's condition once more, he calculated how much polishing it needed, and chose which of the graduated stones to start with. He laid the kit's heavy leather square flat on the boards, then set the stone on it. Then he sprinkled and spread a few drops of water over the surface with his fingers. He settled himself on his knees, took up the axe and, placing its cutting edge against the stone, set up a steady rhythm.

The warmth of the day and the steady _shssh-shssh_ of steel against wet stone put him into a pleasant trance. He picked up the axe to examine it, testing its edge with his thumb in several places. It was almost ready: sharp, clean, solid. _Just a few more strokes right here—_ A very keen observer could have noticed the softness around his mouth, the light in his eyes. It had been a long time since he'd worked a bloodless blade.

As he worked, he thought about the crop to come: beans, a big square plot of yams. Cabbage and green onions. Daikon, of course. Gobo, and carrots. In his mind, he laid it out, the yams in that corner, the rows of beans followed by the onions, and then the cabbage and gobo. Once the beans were harvested, burdock in their place.

Oh, yes, he almost forgot: taro! His taste buds pinched at the thought of lovely piles of the white root, boiled and mashed with tofu and white miso, or pickled and eaten with charred sea bass. At this altitude, it would probably take its full year to mature, so he'd have to wait until next spring.

 _Next spring._

That stopped his thoughts, and he sat back on his heels to deal with it. It was possible, even probable, that he would be stuck here for a year. Or even more. Who knew when Katsura would be able to come out of hiding? Yes, it might be quite a while before the resistance got its feet back under itself, before he would be called back. Long enough for him to have a real rest, for the taste and the smell of blood to fade, for the nightmares to quiet. Long enough for the taro to mature. Next spring could be quite tasty.


	18. 16: Mothers & Daughters, Sisters & Child

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 16: Mothers & Daughters, Sisters & Children

 _In which Tomoe enjoys her freedom and buys irises._

It was such a relief, being on her own for a change, that she found herself humming on the way down the hill—a little working song her mother had taught her.

 _Oh, my sweet mother…_

After their mother died, she and her younger brother had enjoyed exploring the wild trails around their home. She was the elder by nine years, their father spent much time away on business, and there was no one else to care for him, but neither was there anyone to guide her, either in her own development or in the care of her brother. She got into the habit of wearing boys' clothing, and he taught her boys' skills: to hunt birds with a bow; to fish with both a trap and a hook; to sleep out of doors and to eat what she hunted. He learned girls' skills: to mend tears in his trousers; to cook rice; to stock a larder. She taught him their family songs, he demonstrated his kata for her. In exchange for his lessons, she cooked for his dojo. She was looser when in the sole company of his boisterous youth, and could, for the time they spent outside the town, in their hills, shed the constraints of her role as the woman of the household.

Few siblings were as close as they, and her heart keened for him. She worried, too, about how he was faring while she was away. She knew her mission was putting her in grave danger, and from many sides—from the assassin, should he find her out, as well as from those to whom she had agreed to deliver him up—and this didn't even take into account the ordinary threats posed to a single woman alone in a land far from home. _If I were not to return home to him_ — Alone in this strange forest, alone on the rocky path, her mouth tightened. She could not, she would not, fail.

Even though she'd worn her rough, country sandals, carrying her geta in her bag, the steep descent was slow going by herself, without Himura's strong arm to help her. But she was in no hurry and this late spring morning was charming: breezy and warm, with white clouds scudding across a bright blue sky. Once the trail leveled out, and she didn't have to concentrate on each step but could walk with ease, she relaxed, and felt light, almost cheery. Their needs were few this time. Even his list of gardening supplies, with which he'd taken so much time and care, and on which he had expended so many precious words of explanation as he gave it over, made up a scant handful of items. Her returning burden would be light.

When she arrived in the village square, it was still early enough that the crowd was thin, thin enough so that it probably wasn't quite safe for her agent to seek her out, and she knew she dared not stay long. There would be no meeting today. In spite of this—or perhaps because of it—she smiled to herself.

 _I am free from everyone this morning!_

She purchased their few household items—tea, some dried seaweed, a sack of red beans—and the seeds and slips he'd requested, then she noticed a small box of brown, shriveled-up rhizomes tucked back in a corner of the vendor's stall. Curious, she asked, "What are these?" The man, busy with another customer, glanced over and said offhandedly, "Those? They're worthless. Too old. Irises from two years ago."

Irises! Her vision clouded with the image of her mother's iris garden. Every variety—bearded, smooth, frilly, crested—and every color, it seemed, was represented in that crowded patch fenced off from the vegetable garden. But the most prized, the ones that were coddled and cosseted and tended to within an inch of their lives, were the simple, plain, purple ones. They formed an edging to the bed that was both thick and luxuriant. It was next to these that Tomoe and her mother sat to take tea together, or to share the mending in the spring sun, or just to be quiet and near each other.

She bought them.

Not yet ready to return, she strolled down to the lake's shore. True summer had not yet arrived, but the weather was holding fine. Fishing boats floated on the lake's glittering surface like fallen leaves, and a smattering of cats waited greedily for them on the docks. The breeze stirred the trees lining the boardwalk and played with the ends of her scarf. The day's lightness, and her absolute freedom—for these few hours—combined to lift her spirits beyond anything she felt for a long time.

Behind her, in the square, the bustle and noise swelled, and she turned to look back the way she'd come. All at once, it seemed, the shoppers had arrived, and the market was in full swing. Suddenly shy to join the throng by herself, she again wished for her killer by her side. It was curious that someone so cold and distant should be a source of comfort. But she took a deep breath, and, bracing herself, walked back along the path to the shops.

With the warming weather, the crowd was dense and festive. It seemed that today was a local celebration of some sort, so added to the usual selection of street snacks were cakes and sweets of all types and shapes, skewers of grilled eel, and bowls of stew made from an assortment of the lake's catch. Celebrants banged drums and clashed cymbals, and she stood and watched for a bit as preparations began for a parade—carpenters hammered the frame for the float, even as monks swarmed over it like ants, tying on lanterns and holy medallions with scarlet ribbons and gold cords.

And the children! Hordes of them, running, laughing and calling, like a flock of chattering, variegated birds. They darted this way and that, underfoot, in constant motion. They played at hide-and-seek, or pulled kites behind them, or batted at paper balls with gaily painted wooden paddles. In her father's household such chaos would have been unthinkable.

At first, she watched in consternation as they swirled around her, but they were so happy and sweet that she found herself drawing closer to them. She even returned a smile from one of the smaller girls, who ran over close to her and, standing on tiptoe, hung onto Tomoe's obi to look up into her face.

"Do you want some of my cake?" she queried, holding up a mashed piece of castella cake in a sweaty palm.

Bending down toward the girl, who couldn't have been much more than four— _just the age Enishi was when Mother_ …—Tomoe felt something old and bruised move in her heart. She replied, "Thank you very much," and accepted the soggy ball of dough.

"Do you live in the cottage on the hill? Sister told me that the woman who lives in the cottage on the hill is very beautiful. Are you beautiful?"

"Well, I don't know. What do you think?"

"Welllll… You don't live with me and you don't live with Junko so you must live on the hill because you don't live at my house and you don't live at Junko's house and I haven't seen you before!"

Just then, a herd of children surged past them. From out of the crowd, a chubby arm reached out and grabbed the back of the little girl's kimono. Swept up into the company of her friends, the girl had just time enough to call out, "Good-bye!" Then she was gone.

Another girl—older, perhaps twelve or thirteen—hurried up, a little out of breath. She smiled and made a polite bow. "Please forgive her. My sister is so impetuous, and she can be quite rude. I can hardly keep up with her. I bring her with me to market because Mother can't handle both her needle and my sister alone." She turned to keep her sister in sight, and spoke to Tomoe over her shoulder. "Most of the villagers get their clothes from us." She eyed Tomoe's fine silk kimono and polished geta. "But the clothes we make are nothing like—" Her eyes widened and her hand flew to cover her mouth. "I'm so sorry! Please forgive me." She reddened and bowed again, this time deeper and longer.

"Please, don't apologize." Tomoe bowed back, and smiled as they both straightened. "I… my husband and I are new here. It is I who should apologize for dressing improperly. I am Yukishiro— No, I mean—" _Oh, what is that name Katsura gave us? "—_ Kazehaya. Kazehaya Tomoe." Flustered, she could only hope her confusion would be put down to her newly-wed status.

"I am very pleased to meet you, Kazehaya-san. I am Iwata Shiori." She smiled. "My ill-mannered sister is Emiko, but we call her Koko." She paused, and then ventured, "I think I met you as you first came into town." She looked down shyly, and said, "I sell flowers sometimes on the road, and I noticed you and your husband as you passed me."

Tomoe remembered passing the girl calling out, "Flowers! Beautiful flowers for sale!" but hadn't recognized Shiori until this moment. "Oh, yes, I do remember you! I'm sorry we couldn't stop to buy flowers."

"You were both here last market day, weren't you? I think I saw you then, too."

"Yes. He is working in our garden today. We want to grow some of our own vegetables. He sent me to buy supplies." She held up her bags. "He seems to be knowledgeable, so I am trusting his judgment about what to get."

"He seems—?"

Tomoe blushed a little. "We haven't been… married long. And we— Well, our families didn't know each other." _Oh, dear, this is awkward._ "We met in the City. We both worked at the same… for the same— Well, we had the same boss." _'Boss'? By the gods, change the subject, Yukishiro!_ "Do you work with your mother in her shop?"

The girl laughed, an open, unstudied laugh that made Tomoe wonder how long it had been since she herself had laughed out loud—not since before Akira had left for Kyoto. "Oh, yes! I am still learning, of course, but Mother says that one day I will take over and she can retire while I take care of her!" The girl's eyes twinkled and she leaned in toward Tomoe conspiratorially. Tomoe couldn't help but lean in a little closer, too. "When that happens, I can get married!" It was Shiori's turn to blush. "I'm sorry, but I must find Koko and get back home. We've been gone far too long. Mother will be worried." She made a last bow, and moved off. "I hope to see you again!"

And that was how Tomoe found herself standing alone in the throng, with a sticky sweet in her hand and a foolish little smile on her face. She had always assumed that, one day, her husband would make her mother to a brood of her own. She had imagined how she and her own daughters would share dreams of family and home, and how the pride of watching her sons blossom into manhood would warm her heart. Her smile faded. Now, the man she was living with had made all of that an impossibility for her.


	19. 17: Cutting Words

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 17: Cutting Words

 _In which Tomoe congratulates Kenshin on his good fortune._

Home from the market, she paced the cabin, unsettled and restless, putting things in order that were not out of order. She shifted the water pot from one corner of the firepit to another and then back again. She unfolded and then refolded the top futon, and then didn't like how it sat on the ones underneath it, so she refolded the entire stack.

He'd greeted her at the bridge, and taking the live shoots from her, he'd walked alongside her as far as the cabin. Once she'd mounted onto the porch, he'd returned to his work on the garden. She had not stayed outside, but had returned to the cabin's interior. She well remembered how watching him had affected her this morning. She wanted to wash her feet and re-comb her hair. She wanted to settle her turbulent heart.

She was growing impatient. She was no closer to a plan to achieve his death, and now she had decided that before that happened, she wanted accountability. He had stolen her entire life, had destroyed it such that there could be no recovery. Her future a blank, she wanted to make him feel something—anything—about Akira, about her, about the pain he'd brought into her world. She wanted him to acknowledge his crime and to see himself for the demon that he was. She wanted to hurt him, break him, if she could.

The light was softening. Soon he would come in, tired and hungry. She stoked the coals, then measured rice and water into the bigger pot, hefted it onto the iron hook, and swung it out over the fire. She filled the smaller pot with water but left it at the edge of the firepit. She would wait until the rice was finished before heating the water for tea. In the meantime, she set out pickled vegetables, fish, and some of the seaweed crackers she'd picked up at the market this morning. She laid out her futon and yukata. She would wait, also, until they had eaten before she said her piece. She didn't want any distractions.

She didn't have to wait long. She heard him step up onto the porch, stamping the dirt off his sandals. The pattern of his habits played out in her mind: He would sit to remove his shoes. She would remove the rice from the hook and set it in the hot sand. He would coil his laces neatly and line up the shoes precisely against the cabin wall. She would set the water pot out over the fire. He would rise in his effortless way and step over to the threshold. She would position herself to the side of the door and slide it open. Before entering, he would greet her, "Good evening, Yukishiro-san. Are you ready for me to come in?"

These domesticities, these intimate, comfortable habits that she should have shared with someone else, smoldered under her thoughts and hardened her heart.

"Please come in and sit, Himura-san. The rice is ready, and tea won't be long."

They ate with little fuss, and by the time they had finished, the colors outside had faded to indistinguishable grays and browns and the clouded sky was a dull blue. There would be rain tonight, but she knew better than to hope for a cooler tomorrow. As was their habit, she retired behind her screen to change and write in her diary, and he used this time to tidy up from dinner and to change into yukata. He refilled the water pot from the bucket, and swung it over the fire, then went out onto the porch, both to appreciate the darkening sky and to give her more privacy.

When she heard the water simmering, she put down her comb, and emerged to tend to their evening tea. She arranged the tea bowls, the tea jar, and the water pot on the tray, then picked it up and carried it out to where he was sitting. She knelt next to him, setting the tea tray between them. First, she poured and handed him the steaming bowl, and he poured for her in return. As always, she took up her bowl cautiously because he preferred his tea nearly boiling. They drank together, but she could only sip hers. When he set down his empty bowl, she poured him another. He drank this one more slowly, and she could tell he was enjoying it. Good. She wanted him feeling at ease when she struck.

When he was at peace, and all was quiet, she spoke. "You must be very skilled, very good." Her tone was flat. She could feel heat building underneath her hate. She tried to pull back. She knew she must be careful. It was not yet time. Tonight was for satisfaction, not revenge.

He looked at her, uncomprehending. " 'Good'? I don't under—"

She arranged her face in an expressionless mask, as though they were passing the time with talk of the weather. "Katsura-san is careful whom he keeps closest to him. It seems you are special to him."

"Anō— " He shifted his position, his discomfort obvious. She suppressed a smile.

"The brave fighters of the revolution, our own Ishin Shishi, your compatriots, are working to free our country from…" She had to think for a moment. "…from oppression. This noble goal must require many sacrifices, I think."

He took a breath and began, "All change requires sacrifice. My master used to say—"

She talked over him. "Katsura-san must calculate very carefully who is to live and who is to die. It is said that the most important assignments he gave to you, and to no one else." He seemed to be watching the sky. She did not look over at him. She daren't risk looking at his face.

She smoothed the front of her yukata with her left hand, and then held her tea bowl very still in her lap. Her posture was relaxed, calm, that of someone speaking casually of matters of no importance. "I wonder how it was for your targets. I hope they died quickly." The images in her imagination tortured her, but she couldn't stop, even though her boldness began to frighten her. "There were so many. The gossip at headquarters was that not a single one ever escaped their encounter."

"I do not talk about that." He set his empty tea bowl emphatically on the tray.

She went on as though he hadn't spoken. "I am certain it was necessary that they die. They stood in the way of the new order." She set down her empty bowl, and she noticed that he did not move to refill it. He was beginning to crack, or so she hoped.

"I can't help but think, however, of their families." She thought she heard a forceful breath escape his otherwise silent form. "It seems a shame that they, too, must suffer, simply because their father, or son, or husband, was deemed unworthy to live. After all, they did nothing but love." Her face burned and her chest was tight, and she was glad he wasn't looking at her. Even the most practiced politeness had its limits.

He had been silent during all this, and she finally sneaked a peek at his face. In the feeble light from the waning moon, it was pale and stony, his mouth compressed into a thin line and his eyes bare slits. His body was still as death but she could read the restrained tension in his posture.

"They say that when men kill, they suffer afterwards. In their minds. In their souls." She spoke softly, dreamily, as though the subject were only mildly interesting. She paused, then turned her head to look him full in the face. With unmistakable intent, she said, "It is fortunate for you that you do not."

At this, he stood abruptly, and the sudden, quick movement made her nerves jumped. He remained frozen in place for a moment, and then, without looking at her, said, "Please excuse me. Thank you for the tea." He bowed in her direction, and disappeared into the interior through the open door.

She watched him go, watched the door slide shut behind him. She remained for a long time alone in the dark on the porch. Once her face was presentable again, she picked up the tray and followed him into the silent cabin.


	20. 18: First Aid

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 18: First Aid

 _In which Kenshin remembers the beginning._

Her words stung. They seemed to come out of nowhere—he had thought they were having a pleasant evening—and he had no answers for them. Nor did he want to have answers. His work was so private to him that the idea of talking about it with anyone was incomprehensible to him. He'd never even "talked about it" with Katsura. At least, not beyond that first interview.

 _Everything had happened so fast._

 _On his way down the mountain, as he fled his master, he'd begun to wonder where he would go. For several months, he had listened with increasing interest as the men in the marketplace talked over tea and saké and noodles, at first astonished to learn that the land was split by civil war, and then bewildered at the profusion of factions. There were dozens of "sides," with alliances shifting daily, it seemed. He'd known nothing of the system of government under which he lived, and so these whispered, drunken, or otherwise impassioned conversations fell on credulous ears. He had the luxury—or disadvantage, depending on how you looked at it—of coming to his beliefs with no preconceptions. In the end, he'd settled on the Choshu faction as the most correct._

 _But now, finally on his way, how to get in? He had heard that there were training facilities scattered around the outskirts of the city, and he determined to visit each until he found one operated by his chosen party. How long could it take?_

 _Even he was surprised by how well that strategy worked. At his very first stop, a guard had challenged him with his business, and both his answer—the equivalent of "Choshu, please"—and the fact of a sword being carried by a seeming child had landed him in front of a man claiming to be the master of the camp. Kenshin was not sure he should believe him. The man didn't carry himself like his former master, so the two faced each other with mutual skepticism._

 _Despite this, Takasugi, at least, had recognized a kindred heart of fire and, after watching the boy demonstrate his abilities, he'd fired off a message to the Choshu leader. He told him to come prepared to return with a new recruit._

 _That is how the new-minted shadow assassin came to find himself, that very first night in the City, lying on a used futon in a room crowded with strangers, soldiers older and worldly-wise, and sworn to a new master. And if he'd understood his new master right, he was to play a critical role in the revolution. His mind whirled, swamped with the day's events. He was a single fateful day away from the only master he'd known, the only home he could remember, but he felt a widening chasm already separating him from that life._

He'd thought he could put her words out of his mind, but they churned in his mind, and he began to realize that he could not remain in the cabin with her this night. He changed back into kimono and hakama, and picked up his sword. He had his hand already on the door, but stopped, and turned back. He laid her futon out next to the fire. He didn't know why he did that. Then, just as he slid back the door, she appeared in the opening carrying the tea tray. He stepped a large step back and to the side. She hesitated, but then entered, and he exited behind her, sliding the door shut between them. He picked up his sandals and sat on the edge of the porch to don them quickly, then headed out for night kata.

The quick glance he'd had of her ruined face as he swept past her struck him as hard as her words.


	21. 19: Second Thoughts

**Shall We Go to Otsu?**

Chapter 19: Second Thoughts

 _In which Tomoe puts her affairs in order._

He'd startled her at the door. For a moment, seeing him in his day clothes, and with his sword in his hand, she caught her breath at the sudden idea that he was going to attack her. But then he moved aside for her to enter and slipped out behind her, all in one graceful movement, like a dance for two.

Even after he'd left, she couldn't relax. His absence was not a relief, as she'd imagined it would be when he'd rushed past her. She had no idea where he was, or what he was up to, or whether he would return. She didn't like it when she didn't know what was going to happen next.

And the conversation had not satisfied her, and she couldn't figure out why not. She'd gotten to say every cruel thing she'd wanted to, and he was cut by it, she could tell. She should have been feeling release, vindication, but she was in as much turmoil as ever. Why should that be? She wasn't sorry she'd hurt him. He deserved it. But there was something, something else in her mind. What was it?

She thought back to that moment in the doorway, the glimpse she'd gotten of his face. She'd expected to see anger there, perhaps even hate, a hate matching her own. But that wasn't it at all. Was it guilt? Why didn't that appease her? Shame? Surely that had been her goal. She couldn't think about that right now. Her spite and grief and tears spent, she was exhausted, body uncoordinated with fatigue. She stumbled over to the futon, collapsed on top of it, and was asleep. She'd not had the wit to notice it was ready for her.

Utter silence and blackness filled her night, and utter silence and emptiness greeted her when she woke. Somehow, she had expected him to return in the night, and was disappointed that he hadn't, although she couldn't imagine what he would be like when they met again. She remembered the things she'd said to him and, in the light of day, was now horrified by them, by her boldness and callousness. It was as though she'd been drunk, out of her mind.

She must apologize, but what could she say to soften the sharpness of her words? Even as she tried to craft a speech, she saw the futility of it. The accusations, the judgments she had flung at him were the sort that created permanent rifts. She knew that honor would not allow him to acknowledge her presence now. Her own honor dictated that she keep out of his way, come to that. Even an apology would be too much, an intrusion amounting to a demand.

No, from this time forward, they would be ghosts to each other, each taking care of their own needs in silence and solitude. If she was lucky, that is. His particular honor might demand considerably more of him.

She should prepare herself, write a couple of letters. Maybe she would pack her few belongings and put an address on them—he might condescend to send them home. Yes, he would do that. It was proper.

First, she would set the house in order, and the garden, and then pack, and then wait for his return. It might be days. It might be never. Regardless, she would remain in a state of readiness until that day arrived. She felt her insides begin to accept what awaited her: The trembling of her spine was unmistakable.

But under her growing fear was a stronger emotion, one that made no sense. She was heartbroken. Not for herself. She was not even sure that her heart could feel that any more. No, this ache was for her enemy, the one she had set out to crush, and probably had, and that, thoroughly. She grieved for him.


	22. 20: First Thoughts

**Shall We Go To Otsu?**

Chapter 20: First Thoughts

 _In which Kenshin spends a night in the rain._

 _Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change._

As he threaded his way through the black forest, his feet remembering the way to his clearing on their own, he could almost hear his master's voice as they discussed the political talk he'd heard in the crowd on market days. He had never understood why the difficulty of change meant that he should not get involved, and when they'd exhausted all their words against each other, the boy had decided that all the "wise sayings" were simply a cover for inaction. So he'd left and, with the leaving, had shaken off his entanglements, any bond or lesson or obligation that didn't fit with his new convictions.

Deep under the forest's canopy, and as deep in thought, he hadn't noticed that it had begun to rain, and it wasn't until he came to himself that he realized he'd been standing in the middle of the clearing for some time. He was drenched, and not fit to practice. Indeed, the very thought of trying to reach that state of mind tonight, with the evening's scene still roiling in his head, was repellent. No, he had more thinking to do about what she'd said to him, why she'd talked to him that way, and what he should do about it.

He decided to go back to the river. Its rushing might help him focus—the emptiness of the clearing just made him restless—and washing his face might also clear his mind. He started back the way he'd come.

How could he remain with her, live with her, after this? Her disdain for his work, her insults to his character, all delivered with the most deliberate cruelty—he hadn't known she'd had it in her.

"It is fortunate for you that you do not suffer."

That was the one that cut him to the quick. She'd seen him wake from sleep, drenched in sweat and still trapped in a nightmare world, much as he'd tried to hide that from her. She knew his bleeding wound. It opened less these days, but it was always raw-looking, and often pained him. How could she imagine that he did not suffer? He tried to be angry about savagery of her attack, but other things she'd said got in the way.

"I hope they died quickly."

He thought that his skill had ensured that they had—although there had been that one infuriating, persistent guard—but he hadn't considered that before, had never given so much as a moment's thought to their fear and pain as they felt life slipping away. He winced as those moments came to him more vividly than he liked.

"Of course they had to die."

A voice in his head, a new one, one that had never spoken before, replied, "Did they?" He found that he had no answer to that. Or, rather, he didn't like the one he did have: Katsura had said it, and he had never questioned Katsura.

Had never questioned… He'd always prided himself on his loyalty, but, somehow, just now his blindness to the effects of his actions began to seem a little… cowardly. Irresponsible. Hadn't that been exactly what his master had predicted for him? He had given his sword into the judgment of another.

He'd reached the river, and leaned down to lay his sword well away from the water. He knelt on the bank and splashed water on his face, rubbing it up into his hair. That felt better. He sat back on his rear and hooked his arms around his knees. For a few moments, his mind was quiet.

"After all, they did nothing but love."

The only family he could remember was his master, and he'd never been able to imagine the familial bond he'd heard people talk of. It had never made sense to him. He couldn't connect it with any feeling. But now something seemed different. When she'd invoked the suffering of those whose bonds his sword, his very hand, had broken, he had felt an ache in his chest. Now, replaying those words here alone in the dark wet forest, his mind offered him image after image of the two of them together, eating on the porch, in the town on market days, sharing a quiet cup of tea, and his heart felt a ghost of how he would feel were she to be torn from him.

He'd never thought about the repercussions of his actions, at least, not any further than they'd figured into his Commander's strategies. Now he remembered each man he'd slain, and the women and children, the family and friends who would never again see the face they loved nor hear the voice that brought warmth and comfort and light into their lives, and it was as though he were being crushed under the weight of so many stones.

Then it came to him that he'd done exactly what his master had warned him against: He'd prostituted his ancient and sacred style, and that to ideas with shaky foundations and unclean hands. He, and he alone, had abused that which was meant to bring justice to the world, using it to instead wreak destruction and chaos, pain and death. His master had said that the world was in such a state that even if a strong man were to arise, he could do nothing to set it right. He had dared to think himself strong enough to conquer that warning, and many—he couldn't bear to think how many—were now paying the price he had negotiated in his stubborn arrogance and naive blindness.

He was a worm, a louse. Mortified, and more ashamed than seemed humanly possible, he could hardly bear to even think of himself. He buried his face in his hands and rocked gently in place. His whole being ached with shame and guilt.

For a long while, he sat on the riverbank as these thoughts trickled their slow way through his mind. Gradually, he stopped denying the truth that she had given him. He would have to atone. Somehow, he must make reparation. And he would have to respond to her.

So, first things first. He picked up his sword and set off back toward the cabin.


	23. 21: Mending Fences

**Shall We Go To Otsu?**

Chapter 21: Mending Fences

 _In which an exchange is made._

The cabin was spotless, every bowl clean and stacked just so, both sets of chopsticks in alignment with the front edge of the shelf. The futon and quilts might have been carved out of wood, so perfectly folded and stacked as they were. The tea leaves from last night had been swept into the tatami, and the aroma perfumed the little space. Against his possible return today, she had filled the water pot, and rice was soaking in the other. She would eat at the end of the day, and that only if he didn't show up before then.

She changed out of yukata into her pants and top, folded the yukata and laid it on the stack of bedding. Time for the garden. Even though it had rained almost all night, there were still a few chores she could take care of.

When she opened the door, a glorious morning greeted her. To her right, the rising sun pierced the breaking clouds and streamed brilliant rays across the blue sky where it showed through. It took her breath away, even in her wretched frame of mind. Perhaps that was why she didn't notice him at first.

Something different in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she jerked her head around. There in front of her, on the ground across the porch from the open doorway, he stood motionless in the mud, his clothes waterlogged and hanging heavy. He looked like he might have been standing there forever, waiting for her to open the door. Her heart clutched in alarm, and a ripple of fear trickled down her spine. So this was how her death came to her.

But what he did next bewildered her.

When her eyes met his, he bowed his head and, flipping the legs of his hakama out of the way with one hand, dropped to his knees in the mud and knelt before her. He laid his sword out in front of him and placed his hands in a triangle on the soaked ground. She could see the mud ooze up between his fingers. Then he pressed his forehead to the ground between them.

"Please forgive me. You made me see that I allowed another to be my conscience. I abandoned the responsibility for my actions. Many have suffered because of that. I visited destruction in the lives of those whom I thought to protect." His hands slipped in the mud, so that he caught himself and had to re-establish his position. She was struck silent by this speech, and only stood there, wide-eyed with astonishment. "Your words showed me the truth of how I have lived my life. I am grateful to you for that. If you will accept it, I will pledge to spend my life making amends."

So he wasn't going to punish her for her sharp tongue, after all. Something inside her let go, and she wilted against the door jamb, with her own dose of gratitude washing over her. She looked, and saw for the first time the miserable creature before her. His hair trailed over his shoulder, the tips brushing the wet earth. His clothes were dark with rain and mud. She stepped close to the edge of the porch. "Won't you come in and let me feed you?"

* * *

He arrived at the cabin long before daybreak, and found it shrouded in dark and rain and silence. He knew what it looked and felt like inside. It was dry, and, in spite of its spartan outfitting, comfortable, even homey. He was surprised to find that he wished he were in there, or perhaps had never left. He didn't know where he would go after this—he knew she would not allow him to stay—but he would think about that after he had settled with her.

He could not enter the cabin in his bedraggled state, and not before he had at least attempted a reconciliation. He would wait for her to wake and perhaps come outside. He could only hope that she would hear him, would hear his words of thanks and believe him when he said he wanted to change. For now, the rain washed him clean, and the dark hid his pain, and in the silence he composed his plea.

* * *

She watched him for the rest of the day. His night out in the rain had taken its toll, and he dozed often, leaning against a porch post, or sitting tailor-fashion with his elbows on his knees, chin resting in his palms, watching the season's lavender butterflies. Once he even pulled out a futon and lay on it.

Something had changed, and not just in him. Her own heart showed him to her in a different light.


	24. 22: Out of the Garden…

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 22: Out of the Garden…

 _In which Kenshin makes a treat for Tomoe._

Summer bloomed early this year, full and rich with fertile promise. On the mountainside, the temperature had been climbing for days, and the two farmers toiled energetically and ceaselessly at their tasks. As they worked the garden, or hung the laundry, or fetched water from the well, the relentless sun in the cloudless sky beat down on their heads and backs. Her face had darkened from its porcelain pallor to the color of unbleached silk, her fingers sported a callous or two, and one nail was chipped. As for him, he now looked the part of a farmer, his face and torso as brown as the earth he worked. He'd had to re-learn how to be in the sun all day after an early sunburn had convinced him to keep his shirt on through the hottest hours.

Today, the midday heat drove a shimmering mist out of the ground around them as they weeded, he took the yams, and she, the beans. The steam pasted the garden's dust into every crevice and fold of their skin. Sweat ran down his face, his neck and back, and dirt gritted between his teeth. He straightened and sighed, stretching his back, and glanced over the rows beginning to leaf out nicely. She was crouched with her back to him, and he could see the dark vee of sweat down the back of her shirt, still wide where it disappeared under the waistband of her trousers. He'd not expected her to be able to work so hard. He called gently across the distance, "Let's stop. It's so hot."

She plopped down inelegantly on her rear and drew a forearm across her forehead. She pushed herself up onto her knees, gathered the corners of the cloth where she'd been collecting weeds, and stood up, only then turning to face him. He knew he was staring, but her eyes held him, and he felt hotter than he might expect with only a half-day of work under his belt. It was probably a very good thing to take a break.

"I'll make tea, and we can sit on the porch for a few minutes."

He couldn't read her expression, and he wondered whether he'd been pushing her too hard. "No, let's stop for the day. We're making good progress. We can finish tomorrow." A sudden idea came to him. "Don't make tea… Let's take our lunch…" He stopped himself, wanting to surprise her. "Do we still have rice from this morning?"

She looked at him, puzzled. "Yes—"

"And pickles? Maybe some dried yam?"

"Yes, but—"

"Please pack it all." He was very pleased with himself. A picnic would be just the thing to repay her a little for how hard she'd been working. She hadn't moved from among the bean bushes, however, so he picked his way over the rows between them and took her bundle of weeds from her. With the side of his elbow, he gave her a little nudge toward the house and watched as she started hesitantly toward it. "Go on. I'll be right in." He took both their piles of weeds to the corner where he was building a compost heap, dumped them— _I'll work them in later—_ and then turned toward the house himself, brushing his hands off against his hips.

He'd liked putting that expression on her face, and he looked forward to seeing how she would like where he was taking them.

* * *

So hot! And still early in the season—what would it be like in a month? The sun drove a mist up from the garden's dirt, and she was certain that she would smell earthy for the rest of her life.

She rested her elbows on her knees and blew out her breath, then moved her weed cloth along the row. Yesterday, it had been tiny cabbage plants. Today, the bean shoots, and tomorrow—no, she couldn't think about tomorrow right now. Under the kerchief, sweat trickled down her scalp, and the motionless air offered no relief. The fabric of her shirt clung to her arms and dragged heavily every time she moved. _It's a good thing I like beans!_

She was so oppressed by the heat that she couldn't even react with the joy she felt when she heard him call, "Do you want to stop for a while?" but could only sink into the hot earth and sigh with relief. _Oh, yes. Yes, please. Please do let's stop before we die!_ But she didn't say that. She didn't want to seem too grateful for the pause—that would be rude—and she felt guilty for being so grateful for it. He seemed to be able to work for endless hours, unaffected by heat or fatigue or anything else, and she didn't like to be shown up.

She folded up the cloth now bulging with weeds—her garden at home hadn't seemed to generate this profusion of unwanted volunteers—and stood up. He was watching her. Again. She met his gaze and felt her heart lurch and, though her cheeks burned even hotter, she couldn't seem to break away.

"Shall I make tea? The porch will be a little cooler. It's… shady." She felt ridiculous standing there with her weeds wilting and dirt on her trouser knees and sweat beading her upper lip, explaining to him that sitting in shade would be cooler than standing in the sweltering sun. She could never fathom what he was thinking of her. "Just for a little while—"

And then he tilted his head that way when, as she had learned, he was going to do or say something unpredictable, and he asked, "Is there rice left over from breakfast?"

 _What now?_ Of course there was—didn't she always make enough for the day? And wasn't it time for lunch anyway?

He was talking faster, and she could tell he was suppressing something, almost smiling. "Put it in the tofu bucket, along with the last of the pickles and yams. We still have some, yes? We will carry it with us." He approached and took her bundle from her and nudged her toward the house. She stumbled over a bean bush, and turned to watch over her shoulder as he picked up the hoe and took it and the weeds over to the tool shed.

Once inside, she pulled off her kerchief and wiped her face with it, feeling grit scratch across the bridge of her nose. She would have to get to the river later today—she simply could not go to bed in this state of filth. And it wasn't cooler in the house as she'd hoped. Having both the door and the window open didn't help much when the air outside wasn't even stirring.

She couldn't imagine what he had in mind, and she was certain she'd rather just sit in the shade and quietly eat her meal, but she scooped the rest of the rice— _I'll make more tonight. Or maybe we'll just go without—_ from the pot into the tofu bucket, and then laid the rest of the yams over that and set the bowl of pickles on top of it all. She remembered that there were still two dried pike she'd been keeping back. She curved the two fish around the pickle bowl, one on either side, at first head-to-tail, and then she turned one so that their mouths touched—her mother had had a hair ornament with two fish twining into a kiss, and used to let her daughter play with it sometimes. They were beautiful fish, and even though they were dried and their skin and eyes had lost their luster, their bellies were round and fat and promised extra tastiness.

She paused a moment to admire her handiwork, and then set two flat dishes on top of everything, nestled the lid in place, and picked the bucket up by its rope handle. She stepped out onto the porch to rejoin him.


	25. 23: Watershed

_A/N: I added a few chapters here and there, but couldn't figure out how to insert them where they belonged, so I deleted from the chapter entitled "…And Into the Fire" (numbered by ffnet as 25, and by me as 23) through the end. I'll be re-posting all those chapters as well as the new ones. I also saved the reviews attached to those chapters, in case any of my reviewers want their reviews for some reason. Just PM me if you do want yours sent to you._

 **How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 23: Watershed

 _In which a walk takes an unexpected turn._

 _Where is he taking me?_

Come to that, why was she following him? He was leading her far from the cabin, and she began to feel uneasy. Nothing in his manner spoke menace, but her own malice toward him formed a veil that colored how she saw him. She knew she was no friend, nor even, if he but knew it, a safe companion, and now she wondered just how safe she was with him. Here on this lonesome path she was no more alone with him, no more exposed to him than she had been during the previous weeks, but the sheer isolation of the path pressed on her. At least at the cabin, it was probable that someone would eventually find her body, but here in the forest…

Their way—it could hardly be called a trail—was broken and uneven, threading between towering straight trunks and weedy undergrowth. Sunlight did not reach them, only soft green light. Neither of them spoke, the silence broken only by the far-off calls of the white-eyed mejiro as it sought its nest-mate.

She watched his back as he led the way, and began to notice how he held aside the long branches until she passed them so that they did not catch on her kimono. Once, they came to a small bluff, and as she prepared to scramble up its face, he turned and leaned down to her, holding out his hand for her. Her impulse was to refuse, from pride as much as from self-preservation, but then she glanced up at his face and saw there an open kindness that stopped her mind's focus on caution. Then she found her hand in his. Two steps up, hoisted by his strong arm, and she was standing next to him, quite close. He did not move away. Neither did she.

"How are you doing? We're almost there."

"I'm fine. Thank you."

He turned and continued. It was true: She was fine. She followed him the rest of the way with a quiet heart.


	26. 24: And Into the Fire

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 23: …And Into the Fire

 _In which lunch is followed by confusion._

Here, in this cove lying in deep shade, the air was cool and moist, and the daytime silence of the mountainside was broken only by the burbling of the river and the buzz and chirps of insects. Upstream a few yards and around a bend in the river's course, the mountain broke sharply, and a waterfall sheeted away for the height of two men. Its plunge pool was small but deep, the water almost black under the thick green canopy overhead. The pool overflowed its edge in a wide, shallow ribbon and glided to a small set of rapids that walked crookedly down a slope, throwing up a mist. Droplets of water trembled on the surfaces of the surrounding vegetation. After the rapids, the river narrowed, and roiled and foamed over larger and larger rocks, gathering itself for the cataract that defined the mountain, so far away that its roar was filtered to a whisper by the intervening woods. Where they stood, just at the rapids, the riverbank was made up of close-packed boulders filled with sediment and leaf-rot. A dark green ground cover carpeted the slope's earth and rock. Maple trees lined the opposite bank, their fan-like branches, heavy with leaves, shingling their way up to the forest canopy.

They sat companionably on the shore, comfortable on the thick cushion of moss. She arranged the fish and pickled vegetables on the upturned lid of the bucket, and set it on the ground between them. They ate rice directly from the bucket. Anyone watching would have thought them a happy couple.

"The beans are thriving. Aren't they?" He wanted her to know that he had noticed her hard work on the beans—their most important crop, so full of protein—and that he appreciated it, but he didn't know the way to start that conversation. That, he realized, was not it.

Then she turned slightly toward him. "Soon, I suppose, everything will be ready for harvest, won't it?" she offered gently. In spite of her reticence, she did not seem distant, as they so often were when quiet together and undistracted by any particular task. Her mouth was soft, almost smiling, and her body, too, seemed uncharacteristically unguarded.

He felt expansive toward her, wanted her to feel the same sense of success and satisfaction that he did about their life as it was now. "We have done well with the garden, I think." Already it had been adding variety and flavor to their meals. "You look comfortable in the rows." He had never wondered before, but now he was interested to know her origins, her life before him.

She looked at him sharply, with a puzzled little frown. "I look— What? What do you mean?"

 _Why does it please me so much to do that to her?_

"You seem to know what you are doing. There. In the dirt." He could feel his mouth quirk into a tiny sideways smile. "Did you have a garden at… well, at home?"

She paused, in that way she had that meant she was trying to figure him out. He could feel it when she did that. "Yes, I… I mean, my mother did. Well, then, yes, I suppose you could say that I had a garden. We worked it together." She looked down, and then, softly, "She taught me everything." Her hands came together as though to steady each other. "My mother died when I was very young."

She fell silent again, and he waited. Finally, she drew a deep breath. He watched her put her grief away. She settled her shoulders and arranged her face. Then she looked at him and asked politely, "And your family?"

He was unprepared for questions about himself, and he couldn't think what to say. Hearing of her loss had touched a place in him that had been shut for a long time. "I am an orphan. I know only my master."

Her carefully arranged face softened in sympathy. "I'm so sorry. I… didn't know."

It was his turn to manage his face. _We are too alike._ "No, of course not." He almost reached for her hands; he certainly leaned toward her a little. "There has been much… loss." He had almost said 'death', but the word had seemed too cruel on the heels of what she'd just told him.

After a moment, she rescued them. "My mother would have been proud of us." He looked at her sharply, and she colored and smiled. "Our garden, I mean. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

His face relaxed, and he, too, smiled, pleased with their accomplishment. "Yes, it is." He sighed and looked away. "My master and I gardened, as well." His smile flickered. "He would not have been proud. Or, at least, he would never have let me know if he were."

The clear patch of riverbank was not large, and so as they talked they sat close together, closer even than when they ate together in the cabin. She was seated a little below him, so when she spoke to him, or turned to watch his face when he spoke to her, her own face turned up to his. He was not used to seeing her from above like this, and the enforced intimacy overwhelmed his careful distance. He watched as the river's mist gathered on her eyebrows and beaded on the down at the nape of her neck. The moisture heightened her coloring, pinking her cheeks and darkening her lashes and lips. Even though the air was cooler here than out in the sun, the humidity made them both breathe a little harder, and as they spoke, her lips parted slightly. In the sultry air, her breath rose fragrant as a flower.

He couldn't tear his gaze away from hers, and his own breath steamed hot against his nose and eyes. As though of its own accord, his hand reached across his body toward her, turning him to face her. The damp had glued a stray lock of hair to her forehead, and his fingertips pushed it off her face. He curled his fingers and trailed the backs of them down her cheek and then across the smooth arch of her throat until he met the silk collar of her kimono. He did not immediately remove his hand. He did not notice that she did not shrink from his touch.

"I…" He swallowed, and withdrew his hand. "I think I'll… The waterfall…"

"Yes?" she finally spoke, almost a whisper, but it broke his spell.

"Yes." He drew a deep breath, and blinked himself awake. His vision widened, and he could once again hear the river and the wind in the treetops. "I think I'll bathe before I go back."

"Yes."

"I will be quick, so if you would like to also…"

"Yes." Neither of them moved.

"After I'm finished…"

"Yes."

He rose, stiff in his joints and muscles. The brief walk upriver to the falls gave him a chance to collect himself, to think about what had just happened.

He didn't know what had just happened.

Standing motionless under the torrent, he let the ice-cold water sluice over his sweat-salted, heated skin. It ran down his face and over his lips, tasting brackish until it ran clear of sweat and dust. It sheeted along the hills and furrows of his body, and sprayed out in tiny jets when it hit the sharp converging angles of his muscles. His hair flowed over his eyes, but he didn't notice—his eyes weren't focused on anything.

What was happening to him? In the garden, he'd felt a wave of gratitude for her willingness and hard work on this, his project that he was using to calm himself, to soothe his restless mind. It was comforting, working alongside her, and he was ashamed, suddenly, of his selfishness. He'd gone about his business—his kata, his patrols, his hunting—with no thought of her needs, as though he were living alone. It wasn't her fault that she was trapped here, along with him. In fact, it was his fault, entirely his fault.

The picnic had been only an impulsive idea, a sudden thought, just a small gesture to make it up to her. A little. He'd thought to do something nice for her, but he hadn't thought ahead to what it would be like to spend this quiet time with her.

Then he'd touched her. And now he had no thoughts at all.

* * *

"Sit here."

His words broke the silence they had maintained since leaving the cabin. She turned toward him in astonishment at the soft green light, the rich loamy aroma, the cool and the calm. She'd not expected this kind of exuberant, lush beauty on this mountainside, with its rough underbrush and rocky slopes. The ground gave under her feet as she moved closer to the water's edge, and she could see the tiny, pink, star-like flowers of the mossy cover.

He was pointing to a flat area, just large enough for the two of them to sit side-by-side, and she picked her way across the stones until she could kneel and set down the bucket. She fiddled with it until it was level, then sat back on her heels, put her hands in her lap, and looked up at him. She wondered what they were doing here.

He neither moved nor spoke, but it was lunchtime, so she opened the bucket and began to prepare their meal. He settled himself near her, sitting cross-legged, and waited. When she set the upturned bucket lid on a rock between them, it was unbalanced and it almost spilled. His hand shot out to steady it, and he caught her fingers in his. "I've got it," he said. Their eyes met, and she was struck by the odd color of his in this light.

They talked. Even as they talked she couldn't really follow the subject. This may have been the first sustained conversation they'd ever had, and her continuous wonder at the fact of it kept her slightly addled. About gardens, she thought. And parents.

She realized dimly that for some time he'd no longer looked odd to her, despite his unusual coloring and features. She usually avoided looking directly at his face, perhaps afraid of giving away too much in her own, but that seemed ridiculous now. His mouth was not a typical man's mouth: It was full, with the upper lip recurved, and colored as though by berries. And soft. Not at all a swordsman's mouth. But the eyes— She couldn't decide on their color. They couldn't seem to decide, either, shifting from a deep blue in shadow, almost black, to a vivid violet that sparked when the sun reflected out of them.

Mesmerized, she watched him talk, and when he reached toward her and touched her face, she didn't remember to stop him. In any case, this seemed to be happening to someone else, to a body far away. The calloused fingers were hard-edged, but they etched lightly, almost tenderly, along her skin, raising prickles in their wake. Their warmth was surprising. She didn't know what she'd expected, but it wasn't this. When his skin left hers, the break in contact shocked her. It felt like a loss. She realized she had in fact been staring.

 _Bathing? Oh, yes, the waterfall—_

She watched him make his way through the thick underbrush of the riverbank, watched him slip through the branches like an eel through riverweed, until he turned the corner and no leaf any longer betrayed his movement or his presence. It was as if he had never been there.

But the tingling of her skin and the pounding of her blood told a different story.


	27. 25: Biting the Apple

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 23: Biting the Apple

 _In which Tomoe decides to wife-up._

The banks of the plunge pool were almost sheer, but she managed to find a flat rock that reached out over the water a little, just above its surface. She slipped her zori off her feet, and lined them up very straight at the back edge of the rock. She peeled off her shirt and trousers, folded them into neat squares, and set them on top of her shoes. She sat on the edge of the rock and eased her legs into the freezing water, first one, then the other. The rock was smooth, and wet, and did not scratch her as she lowered herself into the black pool. She gasped a little as the cold enveloped her body and fingered its way into her warmest places.

There wasn't a bottom here, only a rocky steep slope down toward the center of the pond. She held onto the rock with one hand while the other tugged at the cord holding her hair. She tossed the cord onto the pile of clothes and pushed herself off into the water.

Over the summer, she had accustomed herself to bathing in this river's frigid water—even in her family's lowered circumstances, they'd always managed a nice warm furo—but this was the first time she'd submerged herself like this, just given herself over to the chill. In a few moments, however, her body adjusted itself, and she found it… exhilarating. Yes, that was the word. Her heart raced and pumped, and her heated blood surged through her body. She could feel it rushing along her veins, a steep, tumbling river.

It had been a long time since she had swum in the mountain lakes around her home, and, for a time, she slipped through the water thoughtlessly, diving under the surface, then kicking up hard to burst out like a fish. She floated quietly on her back, catching glimpses of the fading sky through the leafy canopy. As she drifted there, the water rippled against her skin and rocked her body, and she could think again.

Was this her moment? He seemed so open to her today. He had brought them to a spot of beauty and intimacy. He had talked. Asked questions. Listened. He had looked at her and not turned away. He had… touched her.

Her pulse was pounding and her breathing a little ragged. She must be out of shape. Had it been that long since she'd been swimming? It all made her feel giddy and disoriented.

 _Maybe if I got out. I'll walk a bit. Dry off before I go home._

Home…

Home used to mean the warmth of family, the steadiness of a well-ordered life. Her mother, humming in the garden. Her brother, with his endless collecting of rocks and bugs. Her father, working into the nights. She could see him now as she used to peek into the room reserved for his paperwork, his profile against the lamplight.

Home had also begun to mean Akira.

Akira, whom she had known most of her life. Familiar and comfortable, everyone, including herself, had admired him for his tact and sophistication, his earnestness and accomplishments. His proposal had promised a life of quiet respectability, children, and social standing.

And yet the rough existence she now led, in that cramped cabin hanging on the edge of a cliff, with a sworn enemy who kept her fed and safe, and whose presence seemed to irritate her all out of proportion to his place in her life— This life, too, seemed to suit her. She couldn't deny it, and that was irritating.

In any case, she was stuck in this marriage, this "arrangement" as he called it. And as unwanted as it was, she was tired of simply marking time. She needed to live again! Impatience seethed in her mind. She did remember that she had a mission here, that her whole purpose in being here was his destruction. But his coppery hair gleamed so in the sun, and his arms pulled her up so easily over the rough places as they climbed back up the mountainside after a day in town. Beside the river today, his fingers on her skin and the depth in his eyes, even her memories of him in that alley that first night—her heart beat faster at these memories. The speed, the power, his burning focus, and even more than that, his heedlessness, all of it called to her. Something in her responded to this lethality he cloaked under manners as perfect as Akira's. On the surface, he was polite and smooth, perfectly correct, but underneath ran currents of a kind of feral wildness that reminded her of her brother when they'd been in the woods too long. The idea of surrendering to that power—and the possibility of possessing it—was hypnotically attractive.

But, of course, the nature of evil was that it attracted, that it seduced. She knew that. Everyone knew that. That wasn't it. That couldn't be it. Her reasons for staying, for immersing herself in her role, were different. Her reasons for pulling him closer were practical. Holding back would only delay her moment. So, from now on, she was all in. She climbed out of the pool, dripping and shivering, her decision, her resolve, firm and clear.

She would be a wife. She would be his wife.


	28. 26: Out of Control

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 23: Out of Control

 _In which Kenshin thinks unfamiliar thoughts._

He did not return to the cabin straightaway, but instead wandered his woods, thinking his future. Trying to put his mind straight. Would it be so bad to make a life here, with her? It would mean leaving behind the ideals he'd fought for Leave behind the killing, the black wave of blood that washed out any kind of future for him. What would it mean to be a simple citizen, to take his place in the sun alongside those who lived in day and slept in night? Could his path be turned, that path he had chosen with that first kill?

He picked his way down the dappled, rocky slope, his shirt crushed in his fist, his chilled skin already sweating in the heat. Was he really considering changing his life's entire course? For what? He remembered why he'd left his master. He tried to feel again that urgent burning for justice, that certainty of purpose that had driven him down the mountainside and into the camp of the Kiheitai. It was disturbing, how distant and dim those memories. But what had his participation accomplished? All he could see was death, and blood, and he had to admit to himself his increasing fatigue, the crumbling of his ability to focus and then to recover. It was true that he'd been tempted to ask Katsura whether his duties could be changed, but until now, he'd rejected the impulse when it arose. Here, isolated—once more—on a mountainside, he could no longer deny these worries. He reached the cabin, and the sight of it brought into sharp focus the real reason he was even entertaining such perfidy.

 _Tomoe._

Till this afternoon, he'd managed to keep at bay the pull she exerted on him, and to deny that, since that first night in that rainy alley, he'd not been free of her. She'd been there, inside his mind, her mysterious nature haunting him, her beauty calling to his nature as a man. His memory, running on its own, presented him with image after image: her graceful form bending over the rice pot. Her sleeping profile deep in a dark night, her pale skin glowing in the moonlight while he tried to sleep but couldn't close his eyes. Her tentative smile when their glances met across the rows of cabbage. He felt her slender fingers on his shoulder as they made their way down to market or under his as he took his cup of tea from her. Once more he tried to hide from it by constructing the awkward interview he would have with Katsura, or imagining what his master would have to say to him about this, his second abandonment. Finally, even these efforts were overwhelmed by the lure of the life he was imagining with her: serenity, family, master of his own fate. Peace.

There was something else, too. He shied away from naming it.

His master was the only person he'd ever heard talk about love between a man and a woman. That was not this. And nothing he'd witnessed nor experienced during his time with the Choshu prepared him for what he felt now, the emotional upheaval that gripped him, the giddiness, the fluttering stomach, the mental fog, the puzzling joy. The unrelieved obsession. He'd never heard of anything like this.

In the starless night, six or seven soldiers made their way through the alleys of the City.

They were on their way to the flower district, that world of light and color and music and gaiety. They were not quite drunk yet, although, having gotten off to a good start, they hoped to remedy that sorry state very soon. One of their number had procured two bottles of some muck that he insisted was actually saké, and they passed these around as they walked, jostling and joking and punching each other as the alcohol settled in for the evening's jollity.

And this evening promised to be especially fun.

Among the band, in fact in the leading rank, sandwiched between two men who loomed over his small figure, was a young boy. His face was stone and his shoulders were set—he looked as if he'd rather be fighting badgers.

Kenshin was not friends with these men. He doubted their dedication to the cause, and their coarseness grated. Most of them had never spoken to him, averting their gaze when they passed him in the corridors, and even the one who had paid attention to him—and had kept it up, inexplicably and irritatingly—could hardly be said to be "friendly," but was more like a sort of terrifying suitor. He knew he was the subject of whispered conversations and the butt of jokes created to hide fear.

So, when as a pack they had blustered and jostled their way into his room, already emboldened by a little drink, and had lifted him bodily and carried him out into the night, he felt it best to go along for the time being. He figured he'd be able to give them an easy slip later, once they were well and truly drunk.

"Little buddy," the man on his right reeled down to Kenshin's height and breathed damply into his ear. "Yer gonna have fun tonight, all right!" Kenshin staggered a bit as the man stumbled and caught himself using Kenshin's hair.

"Leave 'im alone, Makkun!" From behind them, someone punched at Matsuo's arm, pulling Matsuo's fist off Kenshin's head and taking a couple of copper strands with it. "He don' even know where we're goin'." The two men lurched together, clutching each other to avoid falling down, and the second man hissed, loud enough to be heard in the next alley, "Shhhhh! Yer gonna spoil th'… th' surprise!"

"Hey hey hey!" slurred the leader of the gang, his arm still gripping Kenshin and nearly pulling the boy over as he rounded on the rest of the little band, which faltered raggedly to a halt. "Be quiet!"

"Okay, okay, Ushiro-sama," muttered Matsuo facetiously. "We'll be quiet, won't we, guys?"

It's far too late for that, thought Kenshin, not without amusement.

"Hafta get there first, don't we?" Ryu pulled himself up and swayed gently before his troops. He loomed perilously over them and the nearest one took a step back in case his leader should lose his balance entirely. Ushiro was big, after all, and right now, none too stable. "If you… you boneheads keep this up, we'll be arrested and then where will we be? Huh? Huh?" He shook his fist to emphasize his point, the fist attached to the arm around Kenshin, who wobbled accordingly.

"In jail!" someone in the back offered happily, which set the rest of them snickering.

"Shut up, Kazu-kun!" said Ryu. "Somebody hit him." And somebody did, smacking Kazuhiro in the back of the head and sending him stumbling straight into Ryu.

Ryu glared menacingly at the hapless man struggling to push himself upright. "Get off me, you useless, one-horned ogre!" he muttered under his breath. Mustering his dignity, he ordered, "Okay. Now. Let's go. And stay together!"

"But— but, we're here," ventured a tentative voice.

As indeed they were. Ryu looked up, and, focusing carefully, saw that, indeed, they were standing virtually in the doorway to their usual pleasure haunt, with Rie standing expectantly just outside, the perfect hostess.

To Kenshin's chagrin, there had been no opportunity for him to make his escape. Savvy proprietress that she was, Rie latched on to her young victim with not only with a grip of iron but also, which was worse, with a pitiable tale of hard times. Kenshin tried to pry his arm loose, but Rie's persistence was that of one who knows how to wield the advantage of age and gender.

"Come, young lord," she wheedled, dragging him into the reception room. "Please sit with one of my girls for a few minutes. Let her entertain you so that she may earn her wage to send home to her elderly and ailing parents." All of which may well have been true for many of her employees, and, even though he could tell he was being manipulated, he couldn't say no. After all, what harm could there be in a bit of song and story?

Rie knew better than to put this virgin in with just any of her girls. She'd seen too many young men turned off pleasure houses by inexperienced, bumbling, even cruel hostesses. Hers was an old and successful business, and she valued the loyalty of her clientele. You never knew who would turn out to be a useful, or even a powerful, contact. No, she knew how to develop devoted customers. She'd make sure that his first experience was a good one.

This did present her with a problem. Rie knew that this night was to be no mere evening of entertainment but the making of a man. When Ushiro had come around earlier in the day, he'd hinted that Katsura held this boy in special esteem, and Rie would do almost anything to keep Katsura happy. She devoutly wished hers to remain the house preferred by his soldiers. But one of her three most skilled courtesans had recently retired, and the second was accompanying her patron to his father's funeral. That left Ikumatsu, but Ikumatsu was practically pledged to Katsura.

And then she thought of Ōkichi.

Ōkichi was young, perhaps only a year or two older than this boy, but her beauty was unsurpassed, and she was precocious. Her soft eyes enchanted men, her melodious voice soothed them, and her remarkable mind, which missed nothing, had already proven invaluable in mining her clients for information about power and money and social intrigue without which Rie could hardly operate at all, relaying it to this or that powerful patron to assist him in his schemes, dropping oblique, disagreeable hints to a recalcitrant client at just the right moment to encourage payment, or supplying a choice bit of intelligence as a "gift," thereby securing a useful obligation.

So it was that Kenshin found himself in a softly lit, delicately perfumed inner chamber, alone with one of Shimabara's rising stars on the brink of her ascendancy. As the hours passed, she charmed him with imaginative little stories, soothed him with tunes from his childhood and the countryside, fed him seductive delicacies that opened his senses, danced gracefully for him myths from the old days, enticing his interest, weaving a floating dream world for the two of them. So artful were her tender ministrations that Kenshin barely noticed as they stepped over the boundary from the merely delightful into the realm of intimacy and instruction.

When Katsura heard about this escapade, he'd called Ushiro in first, and then, one by one, each of the men who'd participated. Pay was docked, privileges curtailed, and menial duties assigned. Then he'd called in Kenshin to assess the damage. After that interview, however, the punishments had been eased, and Ushiro had been assigned the responsibility of ensuring Kenshin's safe passage to and from Rie's establishment, whenever Kenshin should desire it. This duty Ushiro executed well and efficiently, if a little more often than he'd imagined he would have to.

The new idea, the one he had no experience with, the one he shrank from naming, would not be denied. and it pushed its way into his mind. _I love her._ When he allowed himself that thought, that full sentence, a long-crumbling wall finally gave way. His heart leapt at its new freedom. Even the tiny frisson of terror that remained, trembling at his core, couldn't dampen this new feeling he could only label 'joy'. Sitting there by himself on the porch, he tried an experiment. Once more, this time out loud.

"I love her."

The utterance of it, the sound of it in his ears, tolled like a temple bell with its overripe truth, its inevitability. He didn't know what to do about it, what should happen next, but, when she returned, they could—

 _When she returns—_

He came back to earth with a thud. This was not a decision that he could make on his own. He would no longer be alone, an autonomous agent. There was also the risk, the chilling risk, of being bound, the breach in his security that this presented. He shrank from the difficulties of having someone else's needs impinging on his own, single-minded, almost simple-minded, way of being in the world. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was to have that which was most precious to him lie with another, and, by extension, possibly in the hands of unnamed others. Now he was terrified. What should he do if she rejected him? What would happen in the following moment? The day after? The rest of his life? While it was true that they were legally married, he wanted something more than what he had always carefully thought of as "the arrangement." He wanted something real. With her.

He dared to think the most ominous thought of all. _I want her to love me._

For the second time that day, his mind simply shut down, unable to make plans, unable to think beyond the moment still to come, the moment when he would declare himself and hear her response.

And so he did what he'd always done when the die was cast, when his mind and body were bound to an event yet to unfold: He waited. He waited for her, as he'd waited for so many targets to turn down his alley.


	29. 27: Prelude

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 23: Prelude

 _In which Tomoe calls and raises._

The sun is low, and dusk is softening the sky, but the air is still balmy, perfumed with the heavy scent of sun-heated pines. Cicadas are buzzing their slow evening song, and shadows from the forest lie long over the rows of cabbage and beans and squash in the yellowing light. Night birds begin tuning up in the trees by the cabin. In the distance, the river's muted roar underpins the afternoon's lazy symphony.

Tomoe picks her way down the last of the slope toward the garden. She's barefoot, her shoes dangling from one hand and the tofu bucket from the other. Her gaze is fixed on the back wall of the cabin.

On the other side of the house, Kenshin sits on the porch, still as a stone. He feels her approach. He rises, and steels himself. He walks to the edge of the porch and watches as she emerges from the brush. Her hair is down, and the breeze catches the ends, blowing them around her in a dancing black cloud. She sees him and stops in her tracks, and then covers the ground between them as though she's stalking him. When she reaches the stepping-stone, he puts out his hand to help her up, but she makes no move to take it.

"Welcome home," he begins, but her silence and stillness make him hesitate, and when he sees her face, the words die on his lips.

Then she takes his hand, and steps up onto the porch. For a moment, she stands very close to him, and their body heat grows in the space between them. Then he loosens his grip on her hand and begins to turn and step away, but she holds him back. His gaze snaps back to hers.

"Tomoe—" Her personal name in his mouth, unadorned by a respectful honorific, catches them both by surprise. "I—" But something in her eyes makes him stop.

She pulls him closer. For the second time, she says it: "Husband."


	30. 28: Under the Quarter Moon

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 28: Under the Quarter Moon

In the cavity beneath the arch of his body, she sees his pulse pounding in the side of his neck, feels it in his chest, in his limbs where they press against hers, hot to her skin still chilled from the river. She floats her hands over him, holding, having, that fascinating body she'd only watched and wondered at. Feels the edges and planes of muscle hard as wood and sinew like rope and skin like suede, the notes of the parts making the synchrony of the whole, some movements too subtle to be seen, only felt, but feel them she does, and it drives everything from her mind except the overwhelming physicality of him, his particular smell, the sound his breath makes in his throat, the flash of his eyes. How his skin slips over hers. The power and life of a separate being, this being in particular, caught, trapped even, in her embrace. His hands, his fingers, rough, but with an unimagined delicate, and precise, touch.

Her perfumed breath fills his nostrils, and her cool hands on his body inflame him. Her long, smooth fingers trace over his skin, creating in him a sensation between torment and passion. He shivers, and the fine hairs at the nape of his neck lift and prickle. He lowers himself onto his elbows, tangles his fingers deep in her hair, rook-black, damp and cool, and heavy as water. He buries his face against her long neck. Her belly moves in rhythm against him, her velvety skin whispering against his own. Her hands are no longer tender, but fierce. His hearing dims and his vision narrows until he hears only her deep, ragged breathing, sees only her face beneath him, dark eyes burning in the light of the rising moon, her lips flushed, and red as blood.


	31. 29: Traumerei

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 29: Traumerei

 _In which one dreams, awake, and the other stops dreaming, asleep._

Thunder rumbles in a distant storm, and moisture rides a balmy breeze. The driving heat of the day has evaporated into the misty dark. Creatures of the sun are deep in their dreams. Only the denizens of the night are awake.

He is awake. Lying on his side, one arm is curved under her, and that hand rests at the small of her back, his palm following the swell of one cheek. He watches as she sleeps, her head pillowed on his upper arm, her face buried against his chest: Her hot breath steams against his throat, and he feels every hitch of breath, every rumble of her throat, that little jerk that signals real sleep. Even in the dim light her hair glistens like riverweed. Her arms are folded up, her fists under her chin, like a child's. Every so often, he dares to smooth her hair back from her face, or to run his hand along her skin, no longer cool but fine as gossamer under his calloused fingers. In the pale silver light, he studies her face: precise mouth at rest, lips slightly parted; brows tracing an elegant arch; solemn eyes that could flash fire. Even closed and at rest, their mere memory muddles his mind.

Moonlight and shadows slide across them while the cool night air caresses their bodies. His mind, loose and undisciplined, idles in a slow stream of feelings, vague images of the future. Hesitant in its new territory, it imagines a life unimaginable until today, and dares to touch what it has never before dared dream of.

* * *

In her dreams, she and her brother roam their woods again, sustaining themselves with wild harvest and kill and catch, and sleeping in each other's arms under the summer stars. Happy once more. She brings evening tea to her father as he toils over his haiku. A young child again, she trails behind her mother in their garden, warmed by the summer sun, blissfully ignorant of how much her family's survival depends on its bounty. These dreams comfort her, cradling her in remembered love and happiness.

And when her dreams end, she turns onto her side and snuggles into the softness of her futon, presses herself closer against the warm body there—is that Enishi? or perhaps, finally, Akira?—and sinks into a deep, untroubled sleep.


	32. 30: Matins

**How Does Your Garden Grow?**

Chapter 30: Matins

 _In which they wake to a new thing under the sun._

She opened her eyes in the yellow morning light, and had a moment of panic. His face is inches from hers, soft in sleep. With a flip of her heart, she remembered yesterday afternoon, and last night. She held her breath, wanting to preserve this moment, remembering when she'd seen him sleeping and tried to put her shawl around him and he'd nearly killed her.

Then she felt it. Sometime in the night, he'd rolled toward her. He was now sleeping on his stomach, and her arm was caught beneath him, her open hand centered on his chest. The slow, heavy throb beat in her palm, so strong it drowned out her own. His life lay in the hollow of her hand. Like a thief entering a sleeping house, she had caught his heart.

The day was already heating up, and the layer of sweat between them made her think she might be able to slip her arm free. She could think only of her nudity, and, despite their intimacy of the previous night, she was embarrassed to be seen naked in broad daylight. But she wasn't quick enough. At the first twitch of her muscles, his eyes flew open, and their sharp gaze pinned her down against the futon. She felt like a bird caught in a trap, battering its wings futilely against the bars.

She watched him piece it all together, watched waves of realizations and emotions follow each other across his face. Then he smiled.

"Shall I bring you your yukata?"

* * *

Tears. He hadn't expected tears. What could they mean? She'd seemed to feel uncomfortable with only the quilt covering her, and so he'd thought to bring her something to put on. But, tears?

Had last night been a terrible mistake? He was horrified by the idea that he might have misjudged her intentions. It seemed not possible. He'd been sure he'd read her right, and at no moment had she resisted, nor even hesitated. She had seemed satisfied, as well. He was certain it had been her first time—she hadn't had the least idea how to proceed. Did she now have regrets?

He didn't know how to make this right. He didn't even know what "making it right" would look like in this situation. He cast about for ideas, but his panicked mind would come up with nothing sensible. Bring tea? Light the fire? There was nothing for it. He would have to ask. _Wife—_ "Tomoe-san…" he began. What to ask, how to phrase it? She'd ignored the offered yukata, and was sitting up with her back to him, cross-legged under the quilt she'd wrapped around her, her face buried in the fists holding it closed. Words failed him. Words often failed him, but this time he couldn't just ignore it. Something to do with him had hurt her, and he had to fix it. He knelt behind her, fists on his knees, his whole body tensed in her direction. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. He reached out to lay a hand on her back. The flurry of action in response to his touch startled him.

At once, she was in his arms, in his lap, weeping into his shoulder and choking out words he couldn't really make out. A slain fiancé? Forced revenge? Her mother's death, her family torn. Even the little he understood made his heart ache for her, and his arms tightened around her. He adjusted his position, making a nest of his legs to encompass his long-legged wife, and she curled herself into him. He leaned his cheek on the top of her head. In his embrace, sobbing like the girl that she had been until not so long ago, she seemed almost small. He felt so much older than her. Finally, her sobs trailed off, and she rested against him, heavy in his embrace. The storm had passed, but it had drained her. She was asleep.


	33. 31: Catch

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 31: Catch…

 _In which Enishi finds himself befriended._

"That boy is causing problems."

"Who are we talking about now?" It was late, and the General was tired, eager for sleep, but he had agreed to this one final interview of the day. He would have put it off till tomorrow, but the message had seemed urgent. This subject, however, did not seem urgent, and he was impatient. He was usually impatient with Iizuka. The man was a sycophant, and unreliable, and Tatsumi had regretted the alliance almost from its first day, but he hadn't been able to resist the advantage of having a mole in the Choshu. He would get rid of him as soon as he had served his purpose.

"The Yukishiro boy. He's got himself here somehow, and is running around making a pest of himself. Trying to find his sister."

"That is nothing to me." Tatsumi did not try to soften his dismissal. The sooner this imbecile was out of his sight, the better.

"No, General," Iizuka oozed. "But he could be useful to us." Tatsumi made to rise, and his mole hurried to pour him another cup of saké. He knew the man's weakness for good saké, much as he would try to deny it. Perhaps another cup would buy a few more minutes of his boss's ear. It was the last pour of the flask. He'd better talk fast.


	34. 32: Claustrophobia

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 32: Claustrophobia

 _In which Kenshin takes a break._

He had forgotten what it was like to live in the country.

After her tears and her sleep, she was quiet, spent. He'd held her as the hours passed, and she'd awakened in his arms, slowly, and a little befuddled. He felt a new tenderness towards her. It opened his own spirit, and all day he felt invaded by old memories and odd little ideas about his future.

Neither of them noticed as the time for the midday meal slipped past, and now the day had lost its light. Smoke from a distant forest fire filtered across the eastern sky, reflecting the last rays of the sun before it dropped behind the mountain, making the sky an odd combination of gray and orange and the still air close and dense.

He fetched water for rice and tea while she brought in pickles and fish from the storeroom. He rekindled the fire, and remained squatting next to it. Into the pot he poured rice, the dry grains whispering against the pot's metal bottom and sides. She always washed the rice before cooking it, as was proper, but he liked his sticky, with all its floury surface intact, so he watched the water roil up in milky clouds as he poured in enough to cover the rice. A few stubborn grains floated and swirled like little boats, so with the tip of a finger, he touched each one until they were all submerged. A couple stuck to his finger, and he crunched them between his front teeth, tasting the powdery rawness that promised subtle sweetness later. He covered the pot and swung it out over the flame.

She had returned with the rest of their meal, and he sat back on his haunches, watching her prepare each item in its own saucer. She hummed as she worked. He waited for the water to boil. Outside, rain began to patter on the cabbage leaves.

His re-discovery of country life was more than just this one afternoon of quiet reflection and memories. Their life during these last months had been working on him: the sounds, the smells, the way the day was ordered around one kind of survival, a survival utterly different from that of the last four years, a survival ancient and simple. Without his being aware of it, he had begun to resent the life he'd chosen, the way it pulled at the back of his mind, and he could not get free of it. Neither while living with his master nor in what little he could remember about his previous life had he experienced the human density that was the City. Immersed in the smells, heat, clatter, and chatter of what seemed like a solid block of humans, carts, and animals, he had come to look on his work as a blessing. The night was less populated, and the other soldiers, once his function was clear to them, began to avoid him during the day. So, without intent or design, he had adjusted. But here on the mountainside, high above the bustle of the town, with only the two of them to disturb nature's peace, he felt returned to the environment of his youth. One thing had become clear to him: He was not suited to city living.

The rice was boiling. He adjusted its position so that it returned to a gentle simmer. He poured water into the teapot, and swung it, too, over the fire. She had finished their meal trays. They were just waiting for the rice.

The City was where his entire life was. No matter that his life would not be a long one, the City was where he gave himself to what was important, to the protection of the weak, to the relief of the oppressed, to the destruction of an unjust system. It was where Katsura was. He corrected himself: It was where Katsura would be when he returned and they again took up their struggle. It was where their victory would attain: first, the restoration of the Emperor, and afterwards, the launching of an era of peace for all Japan.

The rice now done, he took it off its hook and set it on the sand in a corner of the firepit. Measuring the amount with his fingertips, he dropped tea leaves into the teapot and then set it next to the rice to steep.

Her soft voice broke into his thoughts. "I'll take our trays out to the porch."

He almost offered to do it for her, but he knew that she didn't like it when he took over tasks from her for no good reason. "The tea and rice are almost ready." He felt the side of the rice pot. Both, in fact, were ready. "Go ahead. I'll be right out." With the rice paddle, he scooped out a helping into each of their bowls and took them out to where she was waiting beside her tray. He went back in and brought out the teapot and their tea bowls. He sat next to her, poured her tea and handed it over to her. Then he set down the pot, and she poured for him. They drank simultaneously and identically: first breathing in the fragrant steam, and then drawing in that initial delicious mouthful of hot liquid, sweet, grassy, a touch of bitterness.

They ate quietly, but not quite in silence. A few words about the darkening sky, or a constellation that peeked through the clearing smoke. Rain dripped from the porch roof, but was already beginning to let up, the short summer burst almost spent. She leaned against him lightly, and he put his arm around her. She seemed to draw comfort from his presence, and that warmed him.

It was dark now, and a little cool. He went inside to lay out their futon, and she gathered their dishes onto the trays and brought them inside. When she saw that he'd arranged the futon side-by-side, she looked at him and smiled. He smiled back and let out a little breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

While she readied herself for sleep, he cleaned their bowls and chopsticks, and stacked everything into the big cabinet, arranging the stacks the way she liked them. He banked the fire, dimming the light in the cabin to a soft glow, and when she emerged from behind the screen, she, too, seemed to glow. He removed and folded his kimono and hakama, and didn't bother with yukata. They were tender and slow with each other tonight, and sleep overtook her immediately afterward.

But tonight, the dark and silence did not soothe him. Lying in the dark in this tiny cabin, isolated from town, City, Commander, and militia, his wife sleeping next to him on a futon they were sharing for the first time, he watched through the door's opening the black sky, devoid of human sound and of light. He heard nothing save the soft drip of rain from the surrounding trees, not raucous laughter spilling out from the door of a pleasure house, not the rumble of carts nor the sloppy clash of blades wobbling in drunken hands. He lay in his home in the country and thought about his life in the City, the ideals that had guided him for many years now, that had been the very meaning of his life. They had been his touchstones, and had never failed to move him, re-energize him when fatigue or doubt overtook him. Today, they were just words, flat and tinny.

Other words came back to him, words spoken by his master, but that had seemed to have nothing to do with him. "Life offers you many opportunities, but you don't end up taking most of them. You just do what you love, over and over." That was all well and good for his master, but what about him? What was he doing over and over that he loved?

He had wanted to save the world. Truth be told, he still wanted to save the world, but he had begun to wonder what a saved world would look like. He wasn't sure he now wanted what he used to want. Or, at least, it wasn't as simple as it used to be. He had thought it was his calling, but now, he began to want… something else. The problem was that the "else" he wanted was incompatible with his chosen path. He wanted to stay here, here on this hillside above a lake, surrounded by forest and garden and river, living an ordinary life of simplicity and dignity. With a wife, and without a sword.

The rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared, and, beyond the porch, the young maple he'd left standing for shade was a black cut-out in crisp starlight.

He couldn't think about this here. Not on a warm futon with tatami under his feet and a roof over his head and the signs of domesticity all around him. He had to get away.

She had been asleep for some time, and it was the work of but a moment to dress, slip a couple of dried fish and rice balls into his sleeves, and thrust his sword through his obi. He picked up his fish traps from the porch, and paused to look back at her through the open door, not even sure why he needed to leave in secret.

He wouldn't be gone long. Just a couple of days.


	35. 33: At Loose Ends

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 33: At Loose Ends

 _In which a restless Tomoe ventures out on her own._

There was no sign of him that day, nor the next. At first she split her time between trying to keep cool in the growing summer heat, sometimes clad only in yukata, and absent-mindedly grazing on their dwindling reserves. Once, she woke in the night to the growlings of her stomach, only to realize that she had forgotten to eat all day.

She'd been disappointed, that first morning after her tearful confession, to find him gone. The day had been pleasant, so quiet and soothing. He had taken care of her in ways that spoke more than words, and she'd felt close to him, bonded. She wanted more of that. She tried not to think about that at the same time she thought about her mission.

Her hands needed something to do, so she gathered in some buttercups from where they still bloomed under the edge of the porch. She took a bowl from the cupboard and floated the flowers in some water. Now, where to put them? The interior of the cabin was unstructured, so there was no obvious focal center. It seemed selfish to put the flowers in her space, although it had begun to look as though no one would see them except herself. She glanced out the open door. They had taken to eating meals on the porch to catch any little breath of breeze. She carried the vase outside and spent almost an hour finding just the right spot, setting it down and then standing and sitting in different places, settling on the base of the left-most post, the one that never saw sunlight. The glossy, bright yellow blossoms shimmered in the shade, and she knelt next to them for some time, listening to the sounds of the forest and the distant river.

On the morning of the third day, she woke to the prospect of another tedious day alone. This was beginning to be too much. What was going on with him? She felt out of sorts, and refused to make herself a proper breakfast, downing only cold leftover rice and stale tea. By the time the sun was up, her tea cup and rice bowl were clean and put away, she'd combed and tied her hair, and had swept the porch clear of the leaves and twigs that fell in a continuous drizzle from the surrounding trees. Still in yukata, she examined the dim interior of their little house—not so much as a single chopstick out of place, every shiny surface gleaming, every fold in the stack of futon precise. Her eye fell on her diary, but she feared reading later what she might write in her current mood.

She cast about for how to fill her day. _I wonder if he will stay away today, too._ She thought of the town, and was surprised by her reluctance to make the trip alone, stopped by… what? The mountainside? Being alone in the crowd? With a start, she realized that it was the idea that he might disapprove that held her back.

That did it.

And with the energy from her decision, it was like her mind awoke. She realized that it had been several days since she'd even thought about her obligation to the Yaminobu. She had avoided thinking about that, avoided facing her divided mind. But now she wondered what and how much she might be willing to expose about him. About the two of them. She'd never received any instructions, and, though she was confident they would find her, she feared how they would do that. The thought that they might even come here—to their home!—made her stomach drop a little.

Her sandals made the trek down the mountainside so much easier than the geta had, but the contrast between the rough reeds on her feet and the silk of her kimono against her skin was so great that she almost felt undressed. Once again she lacked his steadying shoulder, but her old outdoorsy nimbleness had returned, and she moved steadily downhill. Around her she could hear the sounds of the summer forest—nesting sparrows fighting over territory, cicadas buzzing, ground creatures slithering through the leaf cover, hawks calling high above the canopy, the rush of the river in the distance—but there was something missing, a bubble of silence that should have been floating before her.

At the bottom of the path, she sat and switched her shoes, relieved to feel properly dressed again. She stood, smoothing her hair and making little adjustments to the fall of her kimono. As she walked the final yards to the town square, the sounds of the crowd grew louder, and her step lighter. She began to feel the cool breeze from the lake ruffling the small hairs at the nape of her neck. When she broke out from the dimness of the alley into the market, color and light and noise broke over her like a wave, and she put out a hand against a wall to steady herself while her eyes and ears adjusted. The shrieks of a flock of children playing with a ball and stick to her left attracted her attention, and so she didn't notice the man sitting in deep shadow on a back bench of the nearby saké bar that had opened its walls in the heat, watching her from underneath the low brim of his bowl-shaped hat.

She drifted among the stalls, allowing herself the luxury of lingering over small distractions. She fingered beautiful obi, and studied baskets of jewelry and trinkets as though they were expensive jewels and she had all the money in the world to spend. Seductive aromas led her in a meandering path until her stomach reminded her of the hour. She selected a tray of grilled octopus from one vendor, and a rice ball flavored with plum from another. In a flush of self-indulgence, she ordered a flask of chilled saké to be brought to her at her table.

 _Now to find a seat…_

A space opened at a table shaded by a wide maple tree, and she slid onto the bench facing the lake. As she settled herself and her food, a young woman brought her saké and a cup. Her mouth watered in anticipation. She removed her chopsticks from the front of her kimono and scooped the first piece of octopus into her mouth. She closed her eyes and just tasted it, sighing in pleasure. She savored every mouthful, every sip, and watched the sun flicker on the lake and the townspeople engrossed in their business.

A shadow fell over her from behind.

"Good morning, Yukishiro-san."


	36. 34: Lying Low

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 34: Lying Low

 _In which Kenshin suffers nightmares, memories, and future shock._

The berries of the wild maple raspberry ripen from late May through June. The white, five-petaled flowers face downward, and give way to bright berries the color of coals in a dying fire. They are tucked well under the leaves, and an unobservant hiker can stroll right by a full bush without even noticing the feast at his fingertips. He is not an unobservant hiker, and he knows how well these berries complement a freshly-killed hare singed on a spit over an open flame.

He hunts and gathers. He sleeps. He rambles. And he tries to think.

This is the bad time, some of the worst days he's known. He needs to remember who he is, what his life is about, to rid himself of the creeping entanglement he feels when he's with her. He tries to recall the life he will return to, the ghost waiting for him to re-inhabit it. He remembers, with torturous specificity, each and every one of the men whose lives he'd stolen, their faces in their last moments, their voices as he stilled them, even the clothes they were wearing, the exact way his sword had sliced and shredded them. One in particular haunted him.

He'd had to wait a long time for this one. The temperature was well below freezing, and he could feel numbness creeping into his fingers and toes. His joints felt stiff. He began to wonder if his targets were going to party till dawn. Katsura had told him to return before it began to get light. He'd also warned him—again!—to stop giving guards and servants the choice to flee before he started his attack. "Even from the shadows, more has been seen of you than I like. There is no reason to offer mercy to those who have chosen to serve the oppressor."

At last he heard the party start to break up. He rose in his shadowed corner and began to stretch and loosen his body. Shigekura Jūbei would have two bodyguards with him tonight: Ishiji, as usual, and a man new to them, so new that he was listed on the black note as simply "Second Guard." The sounds of leave-taking grew louder as the three of them moved from the interior of the pleasure house to its entrance, and the assassin took up a position that would allow him to trail them for a block or two, sizing them up.

The three men chatted among themselves as they walked. He could tell Jūbei and Ishiji were quite drunk. He didn't like that. Loss of control, both in sword and spirit, made an opponent unpredictable, the intentions easier to read, but the actions wilder. Jūbei was rumored to have some ability, although he'd grown fat and slow. He knew Ishiji, knew that he was skilled and in good condition. "Second Guard" was young, and walked as though he'd been trained but not tested. Kenshin would start with Ishiji, getting the real threat out of the way. He had just stepped out from the shadows behind the group, and had drawn breath to voice his challenge when he heard something that stopped him.

"So, young Kiyosato-kun," Jūbei said jovially, clapping the young man on the shoulder. "You are to be married in the spring, is it?"

Kiyosato grinned and blushed, while the other two men laughed. "I am just here to serve as your bodyguard, sir. Please don't concern yourself with my personal affairs."

"Nonsense, my boy! Don't hide your happiness. Among all this bloodshed, it is a bright spot for the rest of us. Revel in it! And let us rejoice with you."

Affianced, was he? And new to the job. Kenshin would offer him his life; surely Katsura would understand. He closed the distance between himself and the little group, stepped back into black shadow, and said, in a voice pitched to carry just far enough, "If you want to live, run."

As a man they whirled, Ishiji nearest him, the one Jūbei had called Kiyosato behind him and to his left, and Jūbei between them in the rear. Both bodyguards struck solid defensive stances, but Kiyosato had turned as pale as the moonlight reflecting off his blade. Ishiji was the one who answered. "Vile assassin! Show yourself and die!"

Kenshin stepped out into the moonlight, forearms still crossed in his sleeves, and saw suspicion in Ishiji's eyes. The experienced guard had already calculated exactly who their attacker was. Jūbei shielded himself behind Ishiji, who had already begun his rush even before Kenshin's hands were clear of his sleeves. There were two sharp clangs as Kenshin drove Ishiji back against the wall, and then a crunching thud as he thrust the point of his sword through Ishiji's throat into the wall behind him, cutting side up. The dying man dropped his sword and clawed at Kenshin with his right hand. Kenshin grabbed that arm and used it to push his sword's blade up through Ishiji's head.

Jūbei had already shoved Kiyosato aside, and came at his attacker with his sword raised for an overhead strike on Kenshin's head, but Kenshin dropped down, and pushed his sword's tip up through the bottom of his target's lower jaw until it pierced the top of his skull. With a quick levering movement, he pulled his sword straight forward, splitting open the man's face.

Kenshin stood and turned toward Kiyosato. It was clear this was the young man's first real fight. During the eight seconds since the scuffle began, he had remained frozen in place except for staggering a bit as Jūbei rushed past him. Kenshin was tempted to spare him, but he remembered his commander's words. In the split-second this took, Kiyosato roused himself, and rushed Kenshin with a roar. Kenshin let him come on to his sword, and then ended his life with a single swipe through his chest.

He'd already started to reach his hand into the front of his kimono to retrieve the paper with "tenchuu" written on it when, to his astonishment, the man's prone body began to rise. The assassin watched in amazement as Kiyosato struggled to his feet. Staggering, and screaming, "No! I can't die now!", he came at Kenshin once more, this time with his sword held straight out in front of him. Kenshin rushed at him in counterattack, aiming for the man's throat, but the combination of drink and approaching death made the bodyguard stumble just as they met, and they rushed past each other with no effect. Kiyosato continued to lurch forward until he finally stumbled and sprawled face-down in the drainage ditch at the edge of the street.

Kenshin was having no more of this, and he strode over to the still-twitching body. Just as he raised his sword to drive it into his opponent's back and through the heart, he heard, "Please. I can't die. I must live!" It was weak and whispery, and so piteous that Kenshin was struck to his heart. But he'd already begun his downward strike, and he was in no mood to allow it to be deflected.

It wasn't until he'd watched the last life spasms quiver and still that he noticed the warm trickle on his face. He put his fingers up to his cheek and felt— What? He brought his hand out in front of his face. His fingertips were black. That didn't make sense. He stepped out into the moonlight. Blood. The stinging in his cheek told him it was his own.

Once, during the night, he woke from a dream, a bad one, but even as he tried to remember it, it slipped through his fingers. Sitting up, he rubbed one hand over his face. It came away from his cheek wet. In the moonlight, he recognized that particular shade of black. He'd almost forgotten.

In spite of everything, he is sidetracked by sudden moments of strange, dizzying elation, his head feeling like the night sky of a festival, flaring and flashing, bursting with fireworks and rockets. The mere flicker across his mind of a memory: her fingers as they wield her needle, the curve of her back as she leans to stir the rice, or the soft swish of her comb through her hair behind the big screen in the evenings, making a rhythm that he picks up as he polishes his sword. Even the particular and precise strength of the tea she makes for him, its color, its aroma. How she'd learned to adjust its temperature to his liking. "You drink your tea hotter than is quite respectable," she'd said.

He can't keep a solid train of thought going for the life of him. Maybe he will just check on her.

He begins a pattern of returning each day, often at night, stopping at the edge of the forest. He would squat there, motionless for hours on end, watching her shadow moving around inside, knowing exactly what she's touching, where she's sitting. Exactly how her skin reflects the fire and how the quilt settles over her body.

His personal and survival habits begin to slip. On his third day out he forgets to bathe, and then does so no more. He stops trapping and fishing, instead scrubbing for berries and roots, edible ferns and flowers.

Nights, he dreams. In the past couple of months, the nightmares had begun to abate. Now they return, and he is no longer used to them. He wakes in sweats again. The horrifying images take many minutes to fade after he wakes, and creep into his mind even as he guards against them. He begins to bed down under the sun instead of the stars, trying to push the night out of his sleep.

But his dream's terrors do not fade when he wakes. He relives, for the first time in a long time, his first kill: A boy, untried, and eager to prove himself, makes his solitary way out to the chosen location, a quiet, deserted shrine deep in the bamboo forest. How peaceful he feels, waiting for his first target, how confident. This first assignment had been arranged for early morning, and the boy didn't guess that this will be the last time he works in sunlight. The spring of tension when he hears the first footfall on the leaf-softened path. The sudden silver flash of his blade as he unsheathes it, how alive it feels in his hands. The confused look on his victim's face, and how it turns first to disbelief, and then to sick terror. The descent of his strike—he can see it even now in slow-motion—the exquisitely detailed sensations as his sword reaches in and slices out the man's life. A sharp cry, then instantly nothing—bamboo does not echo—nothing but peace and the stirring of cool air in a silent forest. If he doesn't look down at his feet, nothing has changed, not so much as a leaf has fallen. The blood blossoms out across the ground in front of the shrine, soaking in, blackening the earth. He is fine, in spite of the warnings, and he'd been fine until two nights later. He can't now quite recall what he'd done about that, how he had moved from that night of shakes and sick sweats to the coolly efficient assassin he is now.

These memories are not new ones. In fact, they had harried him sorely just weeks ago, during that rainy night he'd spent out after she had made him see himself for what he was. But now they vibrate with emotion. Like live things, they gnaw at his mind, they travel like fire along his nerves. Her words had cut him, there was no denying it, but something else has changed within him. His spirit is flayed and open, vulnerable, defenseless against a human empathy taking root in an embryonic part of his heart.

A scrap of a question floats up to the top of his mind. _What if I left—?_ He can't even finish the thought. It's slippery, and it makes him queasy. Between the nightmares and the headiness, the stalking and the ragged sleep, and the rough, inadequate eating, he feels even more muddled than he had at the cabin.

Maybe he will go home now.


	37. 35: Strange Bedfellows

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 35: Strange Bedfellows

 _In which Tomoe tells some, but not quite all._

The voice slithered over her shoulder and into her ear, and ice trickled down her spine at its slimy menace. She recognized it.

 _When they weren't on the training grounds or out on a mission, the soldiers kept to the barracks or the mess hall. There were a few dalliances here and there with this or that girl, but both Katsura and Ōkami frowned on fraternization. Katsura kept the men busy, and Ōkami both rewarded those who outed others, and told tales herself of the tears that lay along that path, so most of the girls looked on the troops with at least suspicion, if not outright disdain. There was one, however…_

 _Iizuka was tall, with dark good looks, and an energetic, free-swinging walk. He knew how to talk to a woman, and more than one of the girls had succumbed to his charms. He had no favorite, however, and it was rare that he returned to plowed ground. When his reputation began to sour his success in this small community, he fell back on simple harassment. He seemed to think he was amusing them as he blocked one's path and feinted back and forth, or suave as he slid an arm around another's waist from behind, whispering unintelligible lecheries in an unwelcoming ear. In these practices, he exhibited no favoritism, but would try it on with anyone who crossed his path._

 _Anyone that is, until she arrived at the Kohagi-ya. After that day, Iizuka left everyone else alone, and concentrated on Tomoe. She was horrified by his behavior, and even more so when she realized he had focused all his attentions on her. What could have made her stand out from the others? She did find, however, that when Himura was around, Iizuka was not. This was convenient: In addition to her designs on Himura, she now used him as a shield._

 _One night, however, she was alone, as usual, in the kitchen, as she prepared the meal she always had ready for his return. Himura was still out and not due back for a couple of hours, and the entire inn had long since bedded down. She heard drunken footsteps stumbling down the hallway that passed the kitchen. Someone trying to sneak back in. Why did they keep trying? It never worked. Katsura chose only the most reliable of his men to guard the interior of the inn. The footsteps did not continue toward the men's rooms, but stopped just outside the door to the kitchen, and the door slid jerkily open._

 _"There you are." His speech was clear, but alcohol infused it with a dark note that sent a chill down her spine. "I've been looking for you, my little flower."_

 _She had been standing to one side of the massive table in the center of the kitchen's open space, and keeping her eyes on his, she slid around to put it between them. He didn't seem to notice, still bracing himself against the door jamb._

 _"It is late. You should be in bed."_

 _"That," he said, as he launched himself off the door and into the room, "is exactly where I want to be." His feet kept going a little too long, and his body thudded against the edge of the table. In spite of the table's solid build, she felt the shock on the other side. He began to climb his way around it toward her. "Come with me, pretty thing. You can't hide behind your shield now. He's away, isn't he?" They had switched places by this time. "Maybe he won't come back this time. Then you'll have to let me…" He leered across the table. "…protect you."_

 _He started to make a dash around one end, and she scampered away, but then he switched directions, and his long arm reached across the corner and caught her wrist. He pulled her toward him and trapped her in his arms, but he had misjudged her. He didn't notice that she had slipped her forearms up between them and, as he tightened his grip around her, he was stopped cold, first, by the look in her eyes, and then by the unmistakable pinch of a blade against his neck._

 _"Please release me." Her voice, low and controlled, had steel in it that he'd never guessed at. His eyes flashed with anger, but even in his drunken state, he could fear the fallout from pursuing this particular situation. She meant business. Katsura would also mean business, and he didn't even want to think about Ōkami's response._

 _Slowly he spread his arms away from her and managed two steps back before he stumbled and fell on his rear in a tangled heap. She advanced a step toward him, her kaiken held in both hands, high and to the side, the point aimed at his throat and positively drooling for his blood._

 _"Now. You will leave me alone."_

 _He nodded, seething inside, but unable to tear his eyes away from that blade flashing in the candlelight, still uncomfortably close to his person._

 _"And you will not come into our area again."_

 _She could actually see him capitulate. She'd not expected it to be quite this easy. What a paper tiger!_

 _"No."_

 _Still she did not lower her blade._

 _Keeping his eyes on her blade's tip, he rose with his hands spread, palms out, and backed out into the corridor. "No, I will not come back here again."_

 _"Close the door, please."_

 _He obeyed._

"I have waited here for you many days, hoping to get a chance to talk with you."

"You!" She dispensed with any hint of an honorific. "What are you—?"

Iizuka sat astride the bench next to her, leaning close, his hot, garlicky breath misting her ear and neck. He ran a finger along her arm, and her skin shrank from it.

"Yes, it's me." He picked a straw out of the communal vase in the middle of the table, then leaned back a little and rested his elbow on the table, picking his teeth with the straw. She noticed with distaste that his fingers were rough and cracked. He looked like—smelled like—he hadn't bathed in a month. "Happy to see me? It's been a long time." He looked at her with those narrowed eyes that made him look like he was about to either pounce or crawl under a rock.

"Why are you here?" she hissed, although there was no need to keep their voices down, here in this din. "Aren't you in hiding? With the rest of…" Even lower. "…with the others?" It was confusing, his sitting here, next to her, in Ōtsu, talking with her in public. She pushed down the dread that crept up her spine.

"I, my dear, am here to gather your… what shall we call it, your intelligence." He smiled, and her skin crawled. "You know. For Tatsumi."

Her head swam with the dissonance. "But you are… You belong to the—" She broke off and looked around warily. "You belong to Katsura," she hissed. "How can you—" She was having trouble organizing her thoughts. "Aren't you—?" Nothing made sense!

He took the straw out of his mouth and drew a deep breath, blowing it out through his nose. He eyed the damp reed narrowly. "What I am is a man trying to survive. That's all." He sneered at her. "Just like you, no?" He leaned back on one elbow and gestured with the straw, watching it flop back and forth. "I sniff out which way the wind is blowing and set my sail for survival." He crushed the straw in his fist and looked at her with dark meaning. "I do not think Katsura is that wind."

She swallowed hard, surprised that the cold fear at the pit of her stomach was more for Himura than for herself. She held no allegiance to any side or faction, but he… She had never thought beyond her own intentions and plans, never considered how many courses of action, and in how many quarters, were hanging on her words. The wrong one, into the wrong ear, and not only she, but he, as well, could be destroyed.

Composing herself, she asked, "Very well, then. What do you want to hear?"

Iizuka watched her silently for a long time—she could feel her face burning under his foul gaze—before speaking. "How is he these days?"

This puzzled her. _Is he asking after Himura's health?_ She inclined her head slightly toward him. " 'How is he?' Do you mean… is he well?"

"What are you talking about? 'Is he well'?" He snorted. "I couldn't care less how he feels!" He shrugged one arm out of his kimono and brought his hand up to scratch his unshaven chin. "I mean, is he breaking down? What does he talk to you about?"

This she could handle. These would be easy lies. "He rarely speaks to me at all. He spends most of his time in the garden—" _Better not mention the patrolling. Nor their recent… intimacy._ "—or—" _Or what? Think, Yukishiro!_ "—or in kata."

"The garden?" Now it was Iizuka's turn to be puzzled. "What do you mean by 'garden'? What garden?"

Relieved that he'd taken the bait, she launched into a description of how she had suggested growing some of their own vegetables and how he had latched on to that idea and how it now took up so much of their time and…

Iizuka raised his hand to stop her, his face pinched with boredom and disgust. "Gardening?" He barked a short, contemptuous laugh and leaned forward to retrieve another straw. "What foolishness! Good. That will soften him up." He went back to picking his teeth and glancing lazily around at the crowd.

She could tell he was losing interest. He wasn't even a decent spy. "Is that all you want from me? I should be getting back before he misses me." True, Himura had been absent for days, but he could be back even now, and this snake didn't need to know any of that.

He sighed as he rose from the bench, squirming his arm back into its sleeve. "Yes, that's all. It's not much, but I suppose it shows that things are headed in the right direction." He bent down to place his face near hers and took her chin in his fingers. "Goodbye, Yukishiro-san. Take very good care of yourself." He grimaced in what she supposed he thought was a knowing grin, turned his back, and disappeared into the crowd.

She sagged against the table with the sudden release of a tension she hadn't realized she'd been holding, exhausted as though she'd been hiking all day. Perspiration clung to her upper lip and soaked her undergarments. She looked at her uneaten food, and, repulsed, pushed it away from her. The saké, however, she gulped gratefully, even though it was now tepid. Even though it tasted bitter.


	38. 36: Boy Crazy

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 36: Boy Crazy

 _In which Tomoe drinks and thinks._

The marketplace swirled around her. People came and sat along the long benched table where she was, ate their lunch, and left. More came and sat and ate and left. She was like a rock in a rushing river. She moved only to place another coin on the table in front of her, and then to pour and empty, cup by cup, the little flasks of saké that appeared before her.

She had not thought about the future in many months, but she was beginning to realize that it was going to arrive, whether she were prepared or not. She tried to think about it now.

Her father had been gentle and quiet, but his dry humor could sting. She could always tempt him from his work for play, or for food, or for just a story, but he could also be a stern disciplinarian, and from him she'd gotten a spine of steel.

Her brother was knit into her like her own muscles. While he was still an infant, she and her mother had played with him, and together had made beautiful little treats for his baby mouth. But that was before the sickness struck, before her father grew quiet and stopped laughing. After that, she and Enishi had clung to each other and, as often as they could, had escaped into the wilderness, where they could sleep in peace, without the sounds of her mother's pain creeping along the hall. The adrenaline of the hunt, the sweat of the hikes, the quiet moments in the dark when she could stop pretending to be strong.

Her mother's death had strained their bonds to the breaking point. And then Kiyosato Akira's family had come to her father, and a light had wavered into her life again.

She and Akira had grown up together, and he shared many of her memories, including of her mother. Until he was old enough to be sent to the dojo and spend all his days there, he'd harvested beans and cabbage alongside her, and eaten with her family many evenings at the big welcoming table in the back, along with others of the neighborhood's children. Akira had been good and happy. He had not suffered under the burden of duty, but seemed rather to embrace it—it agreed with him. Akira did what was right and expected. He was eager to please, his father, his master, his family. And her, which both flattered and sometimes irritated her. But it pleased Shigekura Jūbei, whose mansion was in her town, and when Shigekura-dono accepted a position with the Bakufu, he took Kiyosato-san along with him. They were all very proud. Everyone knew they were a good match. In her heart, one of the things she'd liked about him, something that had seemed like a sign to her, was his height. She was a little too tall for a proper Japanese lady, but Akira was very tall, and next to him, she'd felt petite. And correct. Yes, they would have had a good life together.

These men she loved. She could not seem to lay hold of happiness with them. She seemed always to be looking to the past, to previous times that she'd somehow missed when she was there. And now those times were gone, or as good as. What was it her mother had always said? "Time moves on. Things change."

Well, no previous change could compare with this one: Himura. Their beginnings still colored her view of him, and she had trouble thinking of him by his first name; their new intimacy was hardly more than a wavelet in the turbulent seas of their history. Getting to know him wasn't changing that—he was still like a wild thing to her, unpredictable and mysterious and silent. She tried to reconcile the parts she knew of him—sneak murderer, coldly smooth soldier, competent worker of the earth, and now tender lover—but it made her head hurt and her face flush with confusion and uncertainty.

But what had she been trying to think about? Oh, yes. Her future. She'd gotten mired in her past and had allowed her present to take over again. The saké hadn't helped. Well, she'd think about that later.

The sun rose to its zenith and began to descend, and still she stayed and drank. Then she reached into her purse and fished out three coins, not quite enough for another flask, and at last she noticed the sky, the fading light, the shadows lengthening around her. It was late. The crowd was beginning to thin, and some vendors were closing up shop. Time to go home. Long past.

She squirmed her way along the bench to its end and stood up, but had to catch herself against the table's edge. She considered that she may have erred with that last flask. Well, there was nothing for it now. The mountain path waited, and there was no assassin to help her climb it. She was on her own.


	39. 37: Under the Weather

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 37: Under the Weather

 _In which Tomoe takes a nap._

It was slow going.

The shock of her unexpected encounter with Iizuka, of finding him now allied with those who held her brother's life in their hands, and the terrifying realization of the lives balanced on the knife-edge that she walked weighed on her. And the saké-driven musings about her past, in fact, the aftereffects of the saké itself, had left her in a foul mood. As she struggled up the hill, with a swimming head and legs like lead, she cast about for who was to blame.

 _I made mistakes. I cannot deny it._ A round rock rolled under her foot, and she pitched forward up the hill, catching herself with both hands. _Whew! Why am I so out of breath?_ She pushed back up and balanced herself on the steep path. _But…!_ But what? What had she been thinking of? Oh, yes…

 _I did not choose to come to this stupid cabin! It was not my idea to pretend to be married. Stupid idea. Okay, yes, I did choose to…_ She stopped and looked up the hill. She didn't remember the way being quite this steep. Or long. _To… to what? Oh, that's right. To leave home and go to a strange city and hunt down a murderer and kill him._ She slipped again, and grabbed a branch, but its roughness scraped her palm painfully. _All right, that plan may have been flawed. But what else—?_ It still seemed to her that her circumstances were not entirely of her own doing. Perhaps not even largely.

Her head was beginning to hurt and her empty stomach protested both the alcohol and the exertion. She wasn't sure she could entirely feel her legs. A nearby tree had a small flat rock at its base, and she sank down onto that and leaned her aching head against the tree's trunk. If she could only rest for a few minutes…


	40. 38: Knock, Knock!

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 38: Knock, Knock!

 _In which Kenshin entertains a guest._

He had left precipitously, and had stayed away long, and even he could see that behavior like that was enough to annoy a person. He would be very glad to be home—he hadn't handled himself well in the field this time, and he knew he needed sprucing up. He wasn't even bringing home any catch. He didn't know how to prepare himself for how she might greet him, and he approached the cabin with a little dread, pausing at the edge of the trees. The cabin was quiet. In fact, dead silent.

He didn't like that. He set down his traps and emptied his sleeves. He slid his sword out of his obi, and gripped it with his left hand up tight against the guard. It had been many months since he'd walked his assassin's walk, but he fell into it—smooth as water, predatory as a tiger—as he crossed the garden's spent rows. He stilled his breathing. He would have liked to peek in through the small window nearest the garden, but it was just that much too high on the wall. At the edge of the porch, he slipped his feet out of his sandals and waited. He smelled tobacco. A man. What could that mean? A box, about a forearm's length square, and wrapped in plain white paper and tied with rope, just peeked over the edge of the porch to his right. A vase of flowers at the far corner, showing two days' wilt, caught his eye. These observations, like pieces from different puzzles, would not fit together, and his apprehension increased. He put his thumb against the sword's guard, and eased the blade's collar out of the sheath. _Where is she?_ He transferred his weight up onto the boards like water flowing uphill, and slid along the wall toward the open door. _Where is she?_ He waited, waited for something to make sense, for a sign of what he should do.

 _Where is she?_ The thought thrummed in his head, and his mind couldn't get beyond it.

Then he heard someone shift against the tatami, and cough—a smoker's cough. In the little cabin, the sound seemed to bounce off every wall, making him pretty sure the smoker was alone. _She is not here!_ A wave of relief washed over him. Now he could focus on his target without distraction.

He was certain that his opponent would be facing the door, so he gathered his muscles, and, with a single step, swung his body into a striking position centered in the door's opening. To his surprise, he was looking at the back of a man sitting in a sloppy cross-legged position, his elbows propped on his knees as he worked at refilling a fat pipe. Kenshin recognized this kind of pipe. Its rounded, stubby body typically concealed a short blade. What's more, he recognized this specific pipe. He had watched as its owner had proudly shown it around headquarters after having it painted an outlandish combination of garish colors. He relaxed his stance and let out a silent breath. He pushed the sheath back onto its blade, and let his sword arm fall to his side.

"Iizuka-san."

Iizuka had just begun to puff his tobacco alive, and the combination of puffing, gasping in surprise, and trying to turn around made him choke and cough. His face was the color of a persimmon before he could manage speech. Kenshin waited stonily.

"Himura!" Iizuka rasped out finally. He shuffled around to face him. "I was waiting for you." He slapped a few strands of glowing tobacco from his kimono front. Then he noticed the sword in Kenshin's left hand, and he scrambled backward, eyes wide, one hand bouncing vertically in front of his face in apology. "I'm sorry, Himura! Sorry sorry sorry!" he gasped.

Kenshin settled his weapon into his obi. He paused and met Iizuka's eyes, then stepped over the threshold, into his home. The cabin might be small and mean, but it was his domain, and not to be taken lightly. He felt his ownership of this space, and he let it show in his walk. Iizuka avoided looking at his would-be attacker and busied himself with his pipe and its paraphernalia.

"Why are you here, Iizuka?" Iizuka couldn't show him the simple respect of an honorific? He would return the favor. "What do you want?" he snapped.

"Forgive me for showing up without notice, Himura." Iizuka stowed his pipe box into one sleeve, and turned to face him again. He seemed to have regained his composure. "Katsura sent me."

At the mention of his commander's name, he could feel something shift inside. That life did not mesh with this one. He hadn't known that. He hadn't known that now this life felt like home, and that one did no longer.

He had to ask it. "Where is Yukishiro?" He wasn't sure what answer he wanted.

But Iizuka seemed uninterested in her. "Tomoe?" He shrugged and got to his feet. "I don't know. She wasn't here when I arrived." Iizuka walked past him, out the door, his face a mask, and picked up the box Kenshin had noticed on his way in. Kenshin didn't think he was lying, not exactly, but…

"If you have a message for me, let's have it." He just wanted this dog gone as soon as possible.

Iizuka set the box down in front of Kenshin and straightened up. "Katsura says that it's taking longer to reorganize than he thought it would. And he knows you will be needing money." He gestured toward the box. "He's hoping this kit will allow you to make enough to live on."

Kenshin didn't look at the box. "Is that it? Are you finished?"

Iizuka looked disappointed. "Well, yes, I suppose I am." He rubbed the back of his neck and looked sideways at his host with a crafty look. "How about a little hospitality? It's a long, thirsty way back—"

Kenshin cut him off. "If that's all, I won't keep you. You must be eager to start your return journey."

Iizuka sighed, a great, self-pitying sigh, and edged toward the door. "Okay, then." He stepped out onto the porch and, with one foot already down onto the step, he twisted back and asked, "Do you have a message for Katsura? I will be happy to convey it to him…"

Kenshin could hear the manipulation in his voice— _Angling for me to invite him in to sit and drink and smoke, or even pay him for his services_ —and it was all he could do to maintain a civil aspect. "Tell him I am well."

"That's all?" Iizuka was simpering now.

 _The man is intolerable!_ "Katsura-dono already knows everything about me." His tone did not hide his contempt.

Iizuka held his hands up in an expression of surrender. "Okay, okay, I'll be on my way!" And, at last, he was.

Kenshin watched him as far as the bridge, and then stepped out to the edge of the cliff to track him on the trail down the mountain. When Iizuka finally disappeared in the gloom of the woods, Kenshin turned back into the cabin.

Kneeling in front of the box, he untied its string and removed the paper covering. On the side of the box was a large symbol: "Pharmacist." This was not a bad idea. There was always a call for powders and balms for pain, for stomach trouble, for childbirth. This would make him a source of comfort to the villagers, and help keep him "on their side." _Clever, Katsura-dono._ He smiled to himself. He did miss his commander's mind.

To familiarize himself with its contents, he lifted off the lid and began to take out the tied bundles of herbs; stoppered glass bottles; small jars of ointments; flasks of, of— He opened one. Phew! Something pungent, at any rate. Underneath everything were several papers that turned out to be recipes and instructions for use. One other package, unlike the others, nestled in a corner, quite hidden. He picked it up, and its weight surprised him. He unfolded its covering, and bright yellow coins clinked in their cloth nest. In his hand lay several shu, some larger bu, denominations that he could pass in the market without suspicion, but large enough that the collection would certainly sustain them through the winter, even without the income from being a pharmacist. Under the coins was a note in a hand he recognized. "Our recovery is well underway. This should sustain you, and these medicines will legitimize you. I look forward to seeing you again."

 _So Katsura-dono doesn't trust Iizuka, either._

He removed two shu and put them into the pouch that hung inside his hakama. He re-tied the rest of them, and put them back into their place in the chest along with the papers and medicines. He settled the lid back into place, and remained sitting by the box for a long time, thinking about what this all meant.

He imagined that she would like the idea of selling medicines. It would give her an opportunity to talk with the villagers, and he knew she liked that. It would be a way that she could help them, and he knew she would love that. He wouldn't tell her about the money—that was between him and Katsura. He also wouldn't tell her it was Iizuka who'd delivered the chest, not until he knew more about why Katsura had chosen him. That, too, was between him and Katsura. He would tell her only about their new profession. Yes, that's what he would tell her. When she returned.

He still had no idea where she was, and that made him uneasy. Surely she would be back soon. Surely she had not left him. Again he waited for her.


	41. 39: A Golden Opportunity

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 39: A Golden Opportunity

 _In which a rogue encounters a maiden in the woods._

He could feel the assassin's eyes on him—or thought he could—and until he turned the corner past the bridge, he kept his head down and his eyes on the road. He breathed a sigh of relief once he was out of sight of the cabin, and then stood a little straighter. He adjusted the collar of his kimono closer against the cool air under the trees. He was glad to be on his way.

The trail was steep here, and he had to brace himself against tree trunks and hanging branches to keep his footing. The wind picked up in the forest canopy, and he hurried. Still, he would have to get a room in town before he could head back to the City. He determined to brave a meeting with Tatsumi again—after expenses, he was barely scraping by, even after adding the few coins he had wrung from the General to the meager retainer he received from the disbanded rebels.

He'd almost reached the more level stretch of the trail, when his foot landed on a patch of moss. He slipped and slid, and landed hard on his rump. Groaning and rubbing his bruised rear, he clambered up onto all fours, and then his eye fell on an expanse of white silk. Above it, a very familiar face.

What was going on? As she did not move, he leaned in closer. The smell of saké told him what he needed to know. This one, she was like bait to him, and he could not resist her. It was more than her beauty, although that was lure enough. Her spirit captivated him. On the surface cool and polished, inside she was like a rock lurking under the surf. What he wouldn't give to break as a wave on that rock. Her skin alone was enough to stop his mind in its tracks. He ran with an entirely lower crowd, and he'd never spent any time with a woman of her caliber. What he wouldn't give for just one night with her, just one evening wrapped in that perfumed hair, his arms around that elegant form. Having her once would make memories that would last him a lifetime. Here in the forest, with no one to see, and she herself unable to resist— He put out his hand toward a porcelain cheek.

But then his mind flashed back to that sliver of steel he'd just escaped, and those flat, unyielding eyes that had watched him as he left. And a memory flickered of that night when she herself had put her knife to his throat. Whatever was between them now, he knew for certain that she belonged to Himura in a way that would be dangerous for him if he were to cross either of them.

With a great effort of will, he drew back his hand. He remained for a moment, watching the shifting shadows caress the body he could not. He sighed, and clambered to his feet, adjusting his obi. He looked up at the tossing treetops. Heavy weather was coming. He'd best be on his way.


	42. 40: Tadaima

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 40: Tadaima

 _Lullabies._

In the distance, the storm slid out onto the north end of Lake Biwa. Its wind chopped the surface of the water and moved south to toss treetops all along the shore. It sped along, picking up the lake's waters into its already dark clouds, lightning flashing in their depths. Thunder rolled across the water to the southern shore, and frightened forest creatures scampered into what shelter they could find. Raindrops began to clatter in the forest's canopy.

A clap of thunder very close by startled her awake. Disoriented by sleep, and alarmed by how dim the light was, she scrambled to her feet. Where was she? She looked around and, with a clearer head, could see that she had made it farther up the hill than she'd thought when she sat down. Still she would have to hurry to make it home before the storm hit full force. The alcohol had worn off, leaving her exhausted and out of breath. She climbed with difficulty, each step a struggle in the humidity of the approaching storm. Her mood was as heavy as the air.

The interview with Iizuka had been a shock, but it had served to knock her out of her blindness and denial. Where was her current path taking her, after all? Where did her future lie? Now she admitted that she had no intention of carrying out her original mission, but even more than that, her heart was bound to this murderer whose own future was, at best, dangerous territory for her. He would surely return to a life of blood and death. It had no place in it for playing house. It would bring him to ruin, and sooner rather than later. There would be no place in that for her, either. But if she went home, what then? What would become of her wrecked family? Her father would age and die. If she were lucky she might find a position among a large household's staff. And her precious brother? Enishi would most likely become a foot soldier in some nobleman's personal army.

This last idea gave her pause. It was the way of things now, and even she could feel that it would be a good fit for her ferocious little brother. Still, in her own mind, he was still the chubby toddler, exclaiming over a bright-green snake under a rock, or, a little older, challenging her to a duel with crooked branches from the forest floor as they roamed their woods. She could feel that tender image crumbling even as she groped for it.

With a last high step, she heaved herself up off the forest trail onto the level path that led to the cabin. And here was the bridge that crossed the river. A few more steps, and she would be home.

* * *

The light dimmed, the air cooled, the rain advanced, and still she did not return. Then, just at dusk, she appeared in the cabin's open doorway, silhouetted against the darkening eastern sky. He didn't ask where she'd been, and she didn't offer.

"I'm home."

"Welcome back."

She seemed different tonight, very subdued, but not distant. Instead, she attended him closely, ever at his elbow. She took his traps from him and folded them neatly into their place in the corner. She carried out to the porch one tub for him to wash his feet in and another with a cloth for his face and body.

While he cleaned up outside, she changed out of her soaked kimono, and made tea and rice. When he had washed, she brought him a tray with fish and daikon and pickles. She brought his yukata outside so he could stay there and watch the sky until he was ready to come in. While he ate, she sat behind him and combed and re-tied his hair.

"I missed you."

"And I, you."

By this time, the sun had set, and he was beginning to feel the effects of a full belly and the comforts of home. When he had bid the sky goodnight, he came back inside to a curious sight. She had laid out both futon, but not in their usual separate locations by the fire. They lay as he had arranged them the night he'd left, next to each other, but now they lay in his corner—he'd still be able to watch the doorway.

"Won't you rest now?" She gestured toward the pair of futon. "I'm sure you are weary from your days in the forest."

He thought about that. Fatigue dragged at his limbs, and her attentions had warmed and relaxed him. Why did he insist on sleeping as though he were still on duty?

 _Maybe it is time for new habits._

"I am. I mean, I will. Thank you." He was grateful for her thoughtfulness, and he determined to stay put all night, though he doubted he would sleep well lying down. He'd have to get used to that again, he supposed.

She went behind the big screen, and he arranged himself on his futon, and made himself lie still. He could hear her combing her hair and tying it as she did for sleep, and then, he knew, she would spend a few minutes writing. He studied the ceiling and listened to the rain on the roof. He realized that, at some point, she had begun humming, low and faint. He raised himself on one elbow and listened stilled his breathing to better hear her voice. He knew this song! He waited for her to re-emerge, and then asked, "What is the song that you are humming?"

"Forgive me. It is one my mother used to sing to us. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"No, please… I, too… I mean, would you mind singing it? I haven't heard it for a very long time."

She looked surprised, and then her face softened into a nostalgic smile. "I used to sing it to my brother, too. I would be happy to sing it for you."

He lay back down and folded his hands across his chest. She knelt on her futon by his side and began to sing, and he no longer had to try to be still. Her voice flowed into his ears and seemed to fill his body. When she finished that song, she sang another, and another. His eyes closed, his breathing slowed. He yawned. Sleep enveloped him. His clasped fingers began to slip apart, and his hearing faded, collapsing gently inside his head. His dream memory searched for it: a soft arm cradling his tiny body, and a beloved voice, its song seeming to hang, shimmering, in the air…

* * *

She had been surprised when she saw him sitting there. Surprised that he had not lighted the fire nor any candles, surprised to see him at all. She set about to correct the former problem. She could feel his eyes following her as she re-kindled their fire and lit candles, and she liked that. She was pleased he was home, and hoped he was, too.

She was even more unprepared, however, for how he looked once she could see him in the growing firelight. He was rough, as rough as any of his nights as an assassin. His dishevelment served to highlight how young he was; it was easy for her to forget that. He looked like a stray. His clothes were dusty, and his face was smudged. His hair had bits of the forest sticking out of it. And when he turned his face so that the fire's light shone on it, she could see that his scar had opened and bled while he'd been away. It was the first time since they'd left the inn.

Her mothering heart, for so long without a focus, opened to him. The nurturing habits of a lifetime took over, and she gave without reserve. Food, comfort, nursing, tenderness, all the attentions that she had lavished on her brother. It seemed to bring Enishi back to her, the very motions she went through making it seem like he were right there with her again. It was an afterthought to change out of her damp kimono.

She hadn't even realized she'd been humming until he asked about it, and then she felt a little shock of embarrassment. "Oh, I'm sorry! This was my brother's favorite lullaby."

She couldn't have been less prepared for what he asked next, and it took her a moment to understand. But she found that she was eager to sing for him. It had been years since she'd sung for Enishi or her father, and she missed that. It had been a particular pleasure for all of them.

The song sat ready in her memory, and then, without pause, the whole catalog of tender verses that her mother had swaddled her in, and that she, later, had sung for her brother, tumbled out, one after the other. She didn't know how long she'd been singing when she happened to glance over at her husband, and was amazed to recognize the unmistakable signs of deep sleep. It was the first time he had fallen asleep before her. She sang one more, her own favorite, and then, with a sleepy sigh, she slipped under the quilt and closed her eyes.


	43. 41:Heart to Heart

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 41: Heart to Heart

 _In which Tomoe tells enough._

His face was pale and stony, and he paced the porch with his sword in his left hand.

"Husband, please." She spoke to him gently, with great care. "I'm sorry I told you. I just wanted…" She didn't know, now, what it was she had wanted when she'd decided to tell him about her encounter with Iizuka. "Please come back in and sit down."

"If I had known this when he was here—! Why did you not tell me when you returned?"

"Now I'm glad I did not." She really was grateful. Her feelings for him had grown, and she feared a disturbance to their peaceful home from an angry, violent encounter. "I would have had to stop you going after him."

He rounded on her, and demanded, "What was he thinking? He put us all in danger. He put you in danger! We are in hiding, all of us! Had you been seen together—" She drew back in the face of this outburst, and he stopped himself, and put a hand out toward her. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to frighten you."

She reached up from where she sat and took his hand in hers. "I am not frightened of you." She snorted. "And certainly not of him!" It was true. She loathed Iizuka for a viper, but she did not fear him. She patted the floor next to her, and he sat obediently, but kept his left fist clenched around his sword. She could tell, however, that he was calming.

"Please, let's not think of him. He does not belong in this place." She inched closer to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Not in our home." He turned his face toward her, and she nuzzled into his neck. He lay his sword next to the firepit, and used that hand instead to stroke her hair.

"I should not have let you go alone."

"No, I was quite safe, there among the crowd. He was no threat. Merely a nuisance."

He took a deep breath and blew it out through his nose, and she knew he would be all right soon. "Perhaps you're right."

She smiled to herself, and released a little inward sigh of her own. She was very glad she'd not told him more of their talk.


	44. 42: Dead Letter Office

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 42: Dead Letter Office

 _In which Iizuka receives instructions._

"He wants to write to her."

"Let him."

"Doesn't that run the risk of distracting her? Surely it's too early to send him to her, isn't it? And what if… what if Himura should find it? He may work out that we're involved. It will warn him."

"It will not arrive."


	45. 43: Butterfly Season

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 43: Butterfly Season

 _Gardening, bathing, eating, loving, sleeping._

These were summer's glory days, long, hot, and muggy. The cicadas' song, loud and lazy, reminded them that autumn was still waiting in the wings. They thought to escape the heat in town, but visits to the market became almost unbearable. What little wind came off the lake bumped up over the town and skimmed their little clearing. The water's mirrored surface reflected the merciless sun onto white-washed walls, super-heating the still, humid air that hung in the streets. On the mountain, yellow butterflies fluttered around green abundance.

In the garden, the plants fairly exploded out of the ground. He was a good farmer—she was a good farmer, truth be known—and the garden ripened at an astonishing rate. These days flew by in a blur of harvesting and drying, curing and preserving. Kenshin strung lines and netting in the tool shed, and sliced and cubed that which could be dried, hanging and laying out and gathering into string bags until he worked at it in his dreams. Tomoe boiled and pickled pot after pot of gobo, carrots, daikon, radishes. The skin on her knuckles darkened, she developed a callous on her knife-wielding finger, and she began to fear that her skin would never smell right again. Even bathing didn't seem to budge the aroma. She left off wearing her fragrance. It not only mingled unpleasantly with the pickling spices, but she found that it interfered with her ability to smell when her pickles were ready, and she ruined a couple of batches before she realized what was wrong.

At each day's end, they put away their tools, picked up their yukata, and trudged along the path that led to the plunge pool, too exhausted to speak. They had for some time bathed together, and this shared hour had made them easy with each other. They floated quietly in the chilly water, sometimes side-by-side, talking low about nothing, and sometimes separately, each lost in private thoughts.

She nearly always got out of the water before he did, and she would sit on her folded yukata laid on the flat rock, while he floated idly, watching appreciatively as she combed her hip-length hair, wringing it out and tying it in her customary loop. She was an ideal of feminine beauty: sleek hair that reached to her waist, skin the color of the camellia, long dark eyes and small delicate mouth set in an oval face. Her body was lithe and lean, her graceful neck rising from sloping shoulders, with small high breasts, slim hips, and straight-jointed legs. The tiny birthmark hidden in the crease beneath her left rump cheek, that was his alone. The dappled light highlighted the muscles in her arms and thighs and cast green shadows into the hollows of her body.

They didn't always make it back to the cabin before morning.

When they did, they feasted from their well-earned bounty. They were both healthier than when they'd arrived. The varied and plentiful diet had improved both their skin and their temperaments. His eyes lost their hard flatness, and his youth began to show through cracks in his soldier's facade. His face softened, and his mouth revealed a tiny upward tilt at the corners. In their close moments, she would plant tiny kisses in those corners. Even his body lost its some of its raw and hardened look, the skin fleshing out and the muscles unwinding. He woke each morning at first light, not for safety's sake, nor to get the jump on his enemies, but rather because his day—his very life—was calling to him: his kata, which he went to with renewed vigor and energy, a breath of fire in his lungs and a stretch in his muscles. There was his garden, an expression of himself that was almost like a child to him, and his fledgling future, drying its wings in the sunlight of their days. He was shedding the scales of war, melting, like snow under a spring sun.

For her part, she was visibly happy, and a smile often played around her mouth. She threw herself into housekeeping, renewing the habits she'd learned from her mother. Each day, she saved their used tea leaves, and the following day she would sprinkle them over the tatami and sweep them into the reed fibers. Soon, a subtle, enticing aroma filled their little home. The seasonal rains were increasing, both in frequency and in intensity, and their futon grew clammy from the damp. At home, her mother had periodically hung out their bedding to dry and air, but here by the lake the humidity was so much greater that she finally had to drape their futon and quilts every day over the big screen just to stay even with it. Although they had no greeting area, she arranged wildflowers and greenery, and set these creations on the porch just outside the big wooden door. She perfumed their airing futon with lavender blossoms. She crushed jasmine flowers and worked the oil through her hair. She put away her kimono and wore only her "farmer's clothes," as she thought of them. Her body loosened into its new freedom and with it, her spirit.

They began to live very close to each other. Their bodies touched as they went about their lives, little brushes of the shoulders, fingers lingering on fingers as a bowl of tea was passed, a hand resting on its owner's thigh such that its back felt the other's leg. They sat close when they ate, and sometimes they fed each other from the same bowl.

Their nights _,_ hot and sticky in the heaviness of late summer, took on a rhythm unique to the two of them alone, devoid of social convention or the demands of war. They prepared their meals together, and shared those meals, clad only in yukata. Together they settled the house for the night, storing leftover rice, clearing dishes, lighting candles, fetching tomorrow's water. One or the other would make a last pot of tea for the evening, and they would sip the steaming brew on the porch, never thinking that there could be a final one. They breathed in the last of the day's cedar and pine scented air. They watched the town's lights blink out as it, too, gave up the day.

And then, what they'd been waiting for, not patiently, but with delicious anticipation. They handled each other's bodies as though they were born to do it. His master's training had honed a precise and sensitive control over every muscle, each joint and sinew, and he knew all about pressure points. Ōkichi—his trusted teacher and, finally, friend and confidante—had taught him how to read not only his own body's needs and desires but also those of his partner. He was a master of reflexes and pleasure zones, and he filled their nights with delights she'd never imagined. For her part, what she lacked in skill and experience she more than made up for in enthusiasm. She'd desired him when he was distant and cold. Now, his openness, his warm, eager youth simply consumed her. He was a flood to her parched heart.

Afterward, they surrendered to sleep, their limbs tangled together, the rhythm of their quiet breathing synchronized, starlight drenching their skin.


	46. 44: Close to You

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 44: Close to You

 _In which Iizuka gets a room._

This storm was the final straw.

There was a stone bench behind the big willow tree that stood in the tiny park beside the river, and he'd slept under its dense foliage since coming back down to town from talking with Himura. While it was rough, it was far enough from the center of town that no one had noticed him there. Last night, though, the rain had pelted all night long, and the lightning and thunder out over the lake had kept him awake. Even the stultifying heat of a summer's morning couldn't alleviate the discomfort of soaked, muddy hakama and kimono.

A room. Lodging. He'd have to open his purse after all.

Why was he still hanging around town? True, no one had employment for him now—he should poke either Katsura or Tatsumi, or both! about that—so he had no reason to be anywhere at all. In the end, he had to admit to himself that it was to be close to her, to see her on market days. Now that he'd seen the cabin with his own eyes, he pictured her sleeping there, serving tea to him, eating with him. Her pale kimono folded next to his. It maddened him. Why did Himura get some of that and not himself? After all, wasn't he her connection? They were partners, of a sort. He was a much better friend to her than Himura could ever be. He had no illusions about her feelings for him, nor some rosy picture of a little cottage by a brook. He wouldn't even have said that he loved her. But what harm was there in a little friendliness between colleagues?

He wanted to have her, if only once, if only to deny that one time to Himura.

 _The new girl was serving breakfast. Every eye was on her—what a peach! Very different from the usual girls that found it necessary to take work like this. Several of the soldiers tried to spark something with her, but her cool politeness turned aside all comers. When she left the room, the gossip flew. "Where did she come from?" "A girl like that here in this inn—" "Whose is she?"_

 _No one knew anything, and talk began to dry up. Then the shadow assassin walked in—he must not have had a job last night—and shortly afterwards the girl returned. The glance that flew between them re-ignited speculation, and a hushed wave of veiled bawdy asides and lewd snickers swept through the diners._

 _One spot was open, next to Iizuka, and Himura took it. Iizuka was one of the few who sometimes talked to him. Being Himura's assigned inspector had afforded him opportunities to become comfortable—or what passed for it—with the assassin, and in his ambition, he imagined that he could leverage a friendship with Himura into something more. Perhaps Katsura would notice him at last. Perhaps he could garner a more glamorous, more favored—more lucrative!—position. Perhaps he could even be the next assassin…_

 _Iizuka made a little small talk with his laconic neighbor, and then decided to try a man-to-man bond. The meal was over, and the room had quieted under the influence of full bellies. The girls had cleared most of the trays, and men were beginning to rise and stretch. Little clumps of men stood talking of nothing. This was a good moment. Everyone would see that he and Himura were close. A little boost in the opinion of his peers couldn't hurt._

 _Before his tray had been cleared, he'd emptied his bowl of salted plums into his hand, and now fished them out, one by one, sucking on his fingertips after each. A single plum remained, and he popped it into his mouth with a bold flourish. "Hey, Himura." He waited until the room was listening, even if Himura gave no notice that he'd heard. "That new girl is a beauty, isn't she?"_

 _In hindsight, he should have paid more attention to Himura's silence, to his utter stillness. But he was too caught up in the little play he'd written in his head. He leaned close to Himura's ear, and in a stage-whisper, asked, "How did she taste?"_

 _A hush fell over the room, but things weren't playing out as he'd expected. He detected shock and wariness where he'd expected camaraderie and jocularity. Every eye turned from him to Himura._

 _With a quiet tap that echoed in the silence, Himura set his tea bowl on his tray. He picked up his sword from where it lay along his right leg. He still hadn't so much as glanced Iizuka's way. Iizuka's stomach began to squirm. Himura transferred his sword to his left hand—his combat hand—and stood it on its endcap. The little bump against the floor popped the blade free, and out of the sheath's throat, a tiny crescent of silver twinkled in the morning light._

 _If the room had been quiet before, it was like death now. With unruffled grace, the killer rose to his feet. He did not slide his sword into his obi. He did not take his leave of the room. He met no one's eyes. He merely stepped back, turned, and walked down the length of the room and across its end until he disappeared out the door._

 _Iizuka hadn't known he'd been holding his breath, and only now felt his face burning with shame. His hot cheeks kindled something in his breast: hate. An undying, unquenchable hatred for this boy—this young nobody!—who openly ignored his overtures of friendship._

 _He tried to save face. "Hey!" he called out belatedly. "You almost made me swallow the pit!"_

He despised himself for it, but he could not tear himself away from the town. He had to be near her. But he didn't have much money to spare for lodging—he'd have to talk to someone about getting paid again. What about those row houses near the beginning of the uphill path? They looked abandoned. Maybe no one would notice a squatter, if he kept his head down.

He wondered if there were anyone he could do a little work for, maybe splitting logs, or clearing brush. Maybe an old man. Or a widow. Maybe work would push her out of his mind for a few hours.

Oh, yes! That girl Tomoe is always talking to. Isn't her mother a widow?


	47. 45: Some Days, Some Nights

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 45: Some Days, Some Nights

 _In which they slip into a life more comfortable._

"You used to wear your hair differently."

He looked up, startled. "What?" She was eyeing him with a sharp, critical look, much like the one she wore when assessing an arrangement of flowers she'd just finished. He wasn't sure what that meant for him.

It was a cool evening after a warm day, the kind of cool that pools around the feet and tendrils its way up the legs, and they had been sharing a bowl of tea on the porch, listening to the evening sounds from the town.

"When I met you, you wore your hair tied high up on your head. Why did you change it?"

He rarely thought about his outsides, except to the extent that his appearance either did not offend or at least kept him inconspicuous, and he thought even less about his insides. It could be said that he didn't think about himself at all. He couldn't imagine what she saw when she looked at him, so it took him a moment to formulate an answer. "Wearing it down keeps the sun from burning the back of my neck." There. He went back to his bowl. He could hear the music of a wedding procession drifting up from town. He thought it an unusual time of the year for a wedding, but the music was nice.

There were a few moments of silence, and then she asked, "Then why did you wear it up?"

Now this was more difficult. There was the fact of his constant night: no sun to burn him. There was his odd status: not samurai, so no samurai helmet to hold steady, so there was no need to shave his pate and fold his hair into the traditional topknot. But he was no civilian either, and would have felt a fraud adopting any of the styles worn by the men he passed in the street or in the field, so he'd simply stuck with the youthful queue his master had used to control his unruly mop. How best to tell her that the only consideration was to tame his hair while he cut down his targets? He decided to take the chance. "It kept it out of the way. While I—" _Killed? Murdered? Go on! She knows already._ "—fought."

She was silent. _Horrified, no doubt._ But when he dared to look up at her, she did not look horrified. He knew her opinion of the life he'd chosen, and he expected at least anger and accusation, but her face, though pale, was a cipher. "And…" He swallowed hard. "And Ōkami… she said she liked—" He paused.

"Said she liked what?"

This was so embarrassing. Quickly, then. "She said it made me look young. Like a boy." Now she just looked puzzled, and he tried to explain without blushing. "She said that I was a boy, and that I should look like one." He sighed and looked down at his hands, at the callouses that he still carried. "And that I should act like one. She wanted me to stop. I once heard her… scolding Katsura. About me."

The shock on Tomoe's face made him smile, and he looked away, embarrassed. She laughed. He'd never heard that sound before, and it delighted him.

After a moment's recovery, she said, "Well. You don't take care of it. It's a mess." She was right. He never combed it any more but only tied it back after bathing. "It needs cutting."

Now it was his turn to blench. He stammered, "Wh-what do you mean, 'cutting'?"

But she was already behind him, untying the leather and pulling her fingers through the knots. "Don't worry. It's just ragged on the ends. You won't even notice it." He was absolutely certain that he would. "And it needs oil. Stay here." In spite of deep misgivings, he stayed put. He was afraid not to. _Do all women turn into Ōkami?_ She went behind the screen that defined her private space, and came back with her comb, a little jar with a cork stopper, and her kaiken.

"Now, just hold still."

* * *

"Autumn is coming."

"Yes. It is."

"We should see to our larder."

He was trying to introduce a subject of conversation. She smiled to herself. He spoke so much more these days than he used to, and she knew that he was working at it. For her.

"Yes. We should."

"I will go fishing today."

"That is a good idea."

She wondered why the mundane subject of pantry maintenance required so many costly words. Then:

"Would you like to accompany me?" He looked down at his feet. She swore that sometimes he acted just like Enishi. "I could… teach you."

 _Teach me? Ohhh, no! No no no!_

"I—" she asserted, wagging a finger in front of his nose, then snapping it back into a fist, "—can fish!"

He looked up, startled. "You can?"

She laughed in his face, delighted in how that unsettled him. "Oh, yes, my dear husband! And probably better than you!"

And so the competition was on. They never agreed about who won, but they certainly had a mess of fish to clean at the end of the day.

* * *

She rose from the futon, folding back the quilt and sliding her legs from under it. Her bare feet moved across the floor, the skin making the barest whisper against the tatami. In this night of the new moon, the darkness was nearly complete—his eyes did not so much as glint as they followed her movements—but it would have made no difference to her. She was sleepwalking again.

This he could not understand. He knew of many different kinds of sleep. There was sleep for watching, sleep for dreaming, sleep for misdirection of an enemy. He couldn't figure out sleep for walking.

He watched her as she glided through the house, her movements purposeful but slow and dreamlike, as she put the—empty—water pot on its hook and swung it out over the—cold—firepit. Then she picked up their chopsticks and rice bowls from their place in the cupboard and set them down into a corner of the pit. But when she began to tug their futon, with him still on it, toward the porch, he decided that was enough. On his hands and knees, he crawled over to the edge nearest where she grasped it and gently took hold of her hands. Loosening her grip and prying the cushion out of her grasp, he stood and ran his hands up her arms and around her shoulders. Then he applied both pressure and support until he had her sitting once again on their skewed bed. He sat behind her and held her upright against his chest until she was truly asleep again. Almost reluctantly, he laid her down and slid his body snugly alongside hers. He held her close to him, his odd, precious wife.

* * *

Rain again today. No wind, but a heavy drizzle that convinced them to put off chores until tomorrow. She was working out a stain on her kimono, and he was out on the porch. Periodically she glanced out the open door to the unchanging scene: water sheeting off the eaves, and her husband sitting tailor-fashion, elbows on his knees. He was back from the spattering water, but its mist had frosted his hair and clothes, and he was silhouetted against the dark clouds with a ghostly aura. He had out his wooden top again, winding the string, tossing it with a quick flip of his hand, always landing it in exactly the same spot on the floor; a little spot was beginning to wear smooth. He did this without looking, watching the gray sky and distant lightning.

When she looked at him these days, she no longer saw the butcher she'd known at the inn. Back then, his flat, veiled gaze and the unearthly smoothness of his movements had made her think of him as something not quite human. With his formal manners and the old-fashioned way he tied his obi, he'd seemed like a throwback to a previous era, but she was beginning to understand that his mind was as independent and unorthodox as her own had been, the despair of her mother while she was yet young and untutored. She stopped what she was doing, struck with a sudden idea of him as a child. For the first time she wondered about his life before that rainy night in the alley. What had pulled that child into the life of a violent, bloodthirsty murderer? And then that murderer had rescued her, and then she'd followed him into this exile. Surely it all meant something. She went back to her task. She wondered if one day she would know.

* * *

With the clearing sky, the day awoke heavy and exhausted. The rain had stopped, but it had been so long and so heavy that it had silenced the forest: Birds and insects alike had taken cover, and had not yet ventured out. Forest foliage was so drenched, even deep under the canopy, that it acted like a baffle, muting the river.

The day's warmth began to return. Bees droned their opportunistic way among the dripping flowers. Toads croaked in the well. Tiny lakes shimmered in the base of deeply creased leaves, and yellow butterflies touched down at their shores, sipping and washing their antennae. Inside the cabin, the two nappers lay sprawled like cast-aside dolls.

* * *

Under the cherry trees, deflowered and deep green, that lined the lake's shore, he leaned against a warm rock, smelling the water, feeling the cooling autumn breeze. Until recently, it had been a long time since he'd connected with nature in this simple way. He drowsed in the afternoon sun, and his mind wandered. Images wafted through his memory of other days in the outdoors, in the sun; days training, days walking to market. Some even earlier images, in the field with his mother, playing in the mud, other children…

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you."

He started awake. She was standing over him, with that teasing light in her eyes that made him want to crush her to him.

"Did I wake you?"

He stood up, patting dust off his rear, and picked up the small fabric-wrapped package that had been resting beside him. "I wasn't really asleep." He held out the package to her on both palms. Suddenly shy, he ducked his head a little. "Please accept this unworthy gift from me."

She moved her string bag to the crook of her arm and touched the package with her fingertips before putting her hands beneath his to receive it. She folded it in her arms against her chest and spoke softly. "Thank you."

"Please open it now. If you don't like it, I will exchange it."

She untied the knot with one hand, letting the fabric fall down around the hand holding it, and lifted the lid of the rectangular wooden box. Nestled in soft paper, its handle angled into one corner, was a small hand mirror. In inlaid ivory on its smooth, black-lacquered back was a sprinkling of plum blossoms surrounding an old proverb: "As the sword is the soul of a samurai, so is the mirror the soul of a woman." She handed the lid to him to hold, and picked up the mirror to examine it, turning it this way and that.

"It's beautiful," she breathed.

"My master used that saying on me often." He smiled crookedly and shook his head. "Usually when he was trying to warn me of the dangers of the company of women."

She put the mirror back and, taking the lid from his hand, replaced it. Then she retied the fabric covering. Only then did she look at him. He could see her eyes shimmering. "I have missed my mirror that I left at the inn. Thank you."

He felt almost unable to contain his delight at her response. What he wanted to do was not appropriate for this public place, so he instead took her string bag off her arm to peek at its contents. He smiled at the winter tea mugs she'd bought.

"We will need these soon, won't we?"

She moved to his side and took his arm. "Come. It's getting late."

* * *

The day was damp and sloppy, but they hadn't let that deter them. They had taken the medicine chest with them, so, instead of staying in town, they explored the paths that led to the outskirts, to the farmhouses whose occupants would find it inconvenient to visit the town doctor. Together, they treated cuts and scrapes, and sold packets of headache powder and herbs for fever. An entourage of children formed behind them, and entertained them with fantastical stories of fact and imagination. By the time they bid farewell to their admirers, they were the richer by several magic stones, an odd-shaped twig, and a desiccated frog's leg.

It had been a good day.

* * *

She had already preserved some moss flowers, tiny pink things that they were, and a lilac-colored wisteria bloom from the big tree in town. She had even found a wild rose bush with creamy yellow blossoms. Now this fragrant flower from the lavender bushes that grew just down the west slope from the garden would round out her collection nicely.

She flipped to a new page to spread out the little blossom. She closed her diary on the petals, and set her mirror on it for a little weight. Then she took it off again, and opened the diary near the front, to the very first specimen she'd gathered. It was a petal from a purple beardless iris. She'd been surprised to see it blooming along the main street in town on one of their first trips to market, so much earlier than in her mother's garden. She hadn't had the heart to take the whole blossom, so she contented herself with a still fresh petal from one of the older flowers. Even now its color entranced her, though she had only to look out the door to see her own bed of purple flags.

* * *

His sword was his mistress. That was one thing, and his business alone, but why did it disturb her? She would have preferred the competition of another woman.

* * *

She had a contrary nature.

There. He'd admitted it. He finally recognized why being around her made him think of his master. There was so much talk, so much negotiation. He had to do a lot of adjusting, and he was rusty at that.

It was hard, this learning to dance with another person again. It kept his head busy, and made the days fly. He felt awake all the time. He liked it.

* * *

She stayed in bed today. She felt guilty, but every time she tried to rise, dizziness struck her and her head swirled. Even lying perfectly still seemed to exhaust her, and the enforced idleness made her back ache.

"Let me feel your forehead."

"I'm sure I'm fine. I don't know why I'm so tired."

"Even so…" He laid the back of his hand against her face. "No, you don't seem hot." He squatted back on his heels and dangled his arms over his knees. "Can I bring you something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry at all."

"You ate little at dinner last night. And you've had nothing but tea today." She sometimes forgot that he was always watching her. He rose and headed toward their indoor food stores. "Maybe a couple of dried pike or—"

She shuddered in disgust. "Oh, please, no!" The very thought made cold sweat bead up on her forehead.

He looked shocked and stricken. "I'm going to look for something for your stomach." He already had the lid off the medicine chest, and was perusing the paper of instructions.

"I'm all right." She struggled to rise, but without even taking his eyes from the paper, he reached behind him and pushed her gently back down. "Really, please don't fuss." But she complied. It did feel so much better to be lying down.

He peered into the box until he found what he was looking for: a big folded envelope containing tiny packets of powder. He took one out and returned the envelope to the box. "This looks like it will do the trick." He reached over to test the side of the water pot with his fingertips. "It's still warm. Tea will be quick."

He busied himself with the tea and the medication, and she allowed herself to relax back into the futon. Her head was killing her. Tea sounded good. "I'm sorry to be such trouble."

He brought the steaming cup to her, lifted her to half-sitting, and tucked himself in behind her so that she was leaning against his chest. She sipped the ginger-infused drink, and rested against him. "Thank you. You take such good care of me."

He'd been holding her loosely along her sides with his hands resting on her waist, but now he wrapped them around her torso, and held her firmly. He rested his warm cheek against her cool one and said, very seriously, "I will always take care of my wife."

* * *

"Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

The summer squall out over the lake would not reach as far as the cabin, but was sending a pleasant confusion of breezes their way. The damp air carried to them the sharpness of cedar and pine, the freshness of the lake and the heavy smell of fish, and the delicious aromas of the market.

"The rain." He lifted his face to catch more of the almost imperceptible drops. "Although… It's not really rain, is it?"

"Oh, yes. Isn't it lovely?" She reached for his hand. "It's sad, though, don't you think?"

He looked at her. "Sad?" She seemed almost to glow in this light, and he could hardly take his eyes off her. "Is it?"

"Well, these tiny droplets. They're not really a part of the storm, are they? They get blown about on the edges of the real storm. They have no say over where they go. They're not going to save a thirsty plant, or fill a water bucket, or do anything useful. They don't even have the companionship of the rest of the rain. They're all separate. Wild, and alone. Just… water on the wind."


	48. 46: It's a Beautiful Morning

**Summer Wind**

Chapter 46: It's a Beautiful Morning

 _In which Kenshin knows what he has._

She had become sensitized to his waking, and opened her eyes as he was stoking the coals. He looked over at her and smiled. She always found that an amusing sight: her boy-husband, this gentle murderer, this bloody farmer, squatting by the fire, completely naked, hair an unruly mass of red springing from his head, smiling at her in the gray light. She never let on, however, fearing that he might change.

"You go on out. I'll make tea." He seemed to have a need for the dawn that surpassed just an enjoyment of the returning day. She took pains to protect his moments with the waking world. It was as though he needed daily reconnection with the sun, reassurance that he belonged in the world of light. He shrugged into his yukata and went out to the porch. She dressed herself, made tea, started rice, anything to delay her intrusion on his solitude, a way to wait until the sun had driven out the black and silver and cold of the night with color and light and warmth.

This day would be fine. Summer was over, and autumn was already taking the forest around them. The leaves began to thin, green burning into red and yellow. Nights were cool now, and soon they would have to close the door of the cabin when they retired and keep the fire going through the night. Their preserves were put up. The garden slept. The time of year for rest and waiting approached.

Now the sun was up, the rice hot, and the tea ready. She poured a bowl for each of them, and carried them out to where he sat. His eyes were closed, his face turned up to catch the first yellow rays. He spoke without moving, without opening his eyes. "Good morning."

"Good morning." She put his bowl near his hands, and he opened his eyes and took it. Standing behind him, she sipped hers and breathed in the perfumed, dewy air, watching as the sun drove a pearly mist from the winter-mulched garden. Birdsong filled the air, and a toad hopped from shadow to shadow toward the well. The distant roar of the swollen river droned under it all. "Have you ever seen a morning like this?"

He sipped his tea, then patted the porch beside him. She sat. It was warm where their bodies touched. He set his bowl down next to his leg, then turned toward her and took her hand in his. He smoothed it open and ran his fingers over the little roughness that lingered from her summer of work. He lifted it to press it against his mouth. His breath was hot against her skin. Then she felt his lips move in her palm. He spoke so softly that she almost missed it: "For a long time, I didn't think I'd wake to see any kind of morning."


	49. 47: Clearing Things Up

**Harvest**

Chapter 47: Clearing Things Up

 _In which Tomoe helps with kata._

"You are going out?"

"I will return soon."

She knew by his hakama where he was going. "May I—"

Her hesitation made him pause. "Yes—?"

"May I… watch?"

His eyes widened in surprise, then caution veiled his face. He drew breath and opened his mouth to speak but paused. Then, "No," he said, and turned to go.

She'd not expected such a complete and utter refusal, and it irritated her. "Why not." It was not a question. This was new territory for them, her questioning him, pressing him against his will. She felt like she was opening a trapped door, but she could not stop.

Again his answer came slow, as if he had to form words around that which lay deeper than words. "It is not allowed."

This puzzled her. "By whom?" Could he mean Katsura? That made no sense.

"By the… By my master."

This kind of talk she could handle. "He is not here. He will not know." She could see stubbornness rise in his face, and it provoked her. "He will never know."

"He will… would know." She started to object, but he cut her off. "If I ever saw him again, he would know."

"And what would he do then?" She was painting him into a corner, and this both exhilarated and frightened her. She knew that sword styles had their secrets, and she'd long suspected that his was one of the most occult, but it meant nothing to her. This was a part of him that had been closed to her, and she wanted in. He'd begun to fidget, passing his sword from one hand to the other, and shifting his weight a little closer to the door. His discomfort was like bait to her, and she took it. "You have finished your training, yes? You left him. Now you are free, are you not?"

His face paled and his jaw tightened until his temples jumped and the cords stood out in his neck. "I did not— He is—" He took a heavy breath. He tried again: "It is not like that with us. We— There is a difficulty between us."

Perhaps she had gone too far this time. She regretted goading him, and she stepped nearer, laying her fingers on his arm, feeling the tension there, so tight the muscles quivered. She released him from her request, "I didn't mean to—"

He jerked away and, startled, she took an involuntary step back, but he followed, grasping her upper arm and pulling her close. "No, that means nothing now." His eyes were suddenly clear and calm, his mouth soft. "You are my wife. Come." He let go of her arm and put out his hand for hers. "I'll show you."

She'd wondered where he did this, where he kept his killing skill alive. They went toward the river, and when they reached it, he turned upstream. They climbed up past the falls and its pool, and when the ground leveled again, he led them across a line of stones to the other side. Beyond, the forest was so dense and dark and the path so twisted that she soon lost her orientation. Then, without warning, a clearing opened in front of them. It was like a well—the trees were thick as a wall around it—and it had no canopy at all. The sudden, silent light dazzled her, and she had to put up a hand to shield her eyes.

He walked the ground, seeming to have forgotten about her as he picked up stones and fallen twigs and tossed them out to the perimeter. She found a spot on the shadier side of the circle and settled herself between two tree trunks. He stepped to a spot at the edge not too distant from her, removed his kimono, and retied his hakama belt. She watched with curiosity as he folded it and placed it on a patch of ground that he first brushed free of debris. There was a formal, ritualized flavor to his movements, and she realized, with an excited flip of her stomach, that he had already begun.

She watched him stretch and warm up, recognizing the basic moves shared by every fighting style, even by her kaiken training. She watched his body move, the smooth shifts of weight, at every moment both stable and hovering, at once fluid and precise. In spite of these delights, the still, warm air and the fatigue from their strenuous journey conspired against her: Her attention wandered and she began to drowse.

His warm-up complete, he began his fighting kata. She sat up straighter. Ah, this was more like it! But she had never seen anything to compare with it. The choreography was strange: He never seemed to go to the position she expected. It was like listening to music written in a foreign scale. And fast—! She had to pay close attention to follow it, and even then she missed some of the moves, but she could well imagine the havoc this technique would wreak. She herself could attest to a certain kind of havoc wrought. The day seemed warmer, and, her composure disturbed by more than the temperature, she fidgeted and shifted her posture.

Then he stopped, dead center in the clearing, and stood motionless, breathing hard. She rose and made ready to leave, brushing off her knees, reaching to pick up the little tied bundle of rice balls and pickled vegetables she'd brought with her. But something caught her attention, and she looked back at him sharply. He hadn't moved but something had changed. What was it? The light was the same, the air as still and warm as ever. But there was something. Like a hum, but soundless. It raised the hair on her arms.

She was seized by a kind of focus—intense, draining, like something was sucking out her insides. She felt paralyzed, and her breathing deepened as though she were preparing to leap off a cliff.

If he was fast before, now he was just a blur. He exploded off the ground in a whirl, only to spring back up even higher when his foot touched ground. His blade flashed like lightning, and pressure waves assaulted her ears like silent thunder. The sun-blazed copper of his hair formed a solid ribbon of color that wove itself in and through the tangled field of forms and colors. At one point, she could have sworn there was an earthquake.

There was a last violent eruption of confusing images and sounds, and then dead silence. Even the forest had hushed. She couldn't see him for the cloud of dust that filled the clearing, and she could barely breathe for the pounding of her heart. In a moment, his dim figure appeared walking out of the haze, not toward his folded kimono but toward her. He moved with feral grace, and his eyes glinted yellow under the noon sun; his gaze felt like a hand gripping her heart. She would have run, but she was frozen in this waking nightmare. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and her knees tried to buckle. She put out a hand to brace herself against the nearest tree. Her blood pounded in her ears and her vision narrowed until he was all she could see.

Then, as he stepped outside the dust, something in her broke, and she recognized in herself not fear, but desire, raw and driving. She dropped her bundle and covered the ground between them at a run, flinging her arms around his neck and smothering his mouth with hers. He staggered back, clamping his left arm around her, holding his sword out away from their bodies. She came up for air, and looked at a face that she'd never seen before, his eyes fired with an unearthly energy. As her fingers clawed at the ties of his hakama, he threw down his sword, and pulled them together to their knees in the mint and mugwort.


	50. 48: Upon a Knife's Point

**Harvest**

Chapter 48: Upon a Knife's Point

 _In which a sword puts in its two cents'._

Something was up. He could feel her eyes on him this morning as he donned his kimono and hakama. He no longer practiced every day, but when he did, he was grateful that she ignored him as he readied himself. It allowed him to begin his mental preparation, to move into that state where he could reach into the deepest part of himself. So her question reached him from a seeming distance. It took him a moment even to realize that she was speaking to him.

He responded with the little attention he could spare. "I will return soon."

But her next question floored him. _What can she mean?_

Hiten Mitsurugi was the most covert of styles. No one but the current master and his single apprentice ever saw the tiniest arc of a swing or shift of stance. No one, that is, except its victims, who of necessity could no longer talk about anything they'd seen. Even during his time in the Kiheitai, he'd made sure to use only ordinary moves when in the presence of anyone else, and when in some dark alley he'd offered life to someone who was not a target, it was always before beginning his work. The idea of exposing himself to another, to one who was not a target and could not be cleaned up, took real mental effort to conceive.

His answer was reflexive, not even really a decision: "No."

What was not easy, however, were the words that followed. It was a bit of a jumble, but he did recognize the moment when everything changed. He'd been trying to think—or rather not to think!—about Hiko's reaction were he to discover that his student had had one last betrayal in him, one final abandonment of the sacred trust that had been given to him. And then he'd looked at the woman standing in front of him, saw her with new eyes, her mouth set in a determined line, her eyes boring into his, that obstinate tilt of her head, and he remembered what she had become to him, what they were to each other. It occurred to him that his master had abandoned him at least as much as he had abandoned his master. He had, in fact, released his apprentice, and Kenshin had, in fact, embarked on a path of his own making.

He had chosen then. He would choose now.

"Come with me. You should know this part of me. Of your husband."

He had almost forgotten her remarkable ability to fade into the background, but she followed so unobtrusively that he was able to make the trek as though he were alone. The aroma of the uneven earth beneath his feet, the leaves caressing him as he threaded his way through the forest, the air curling into his lungs, the sun infiltrating his muscles, stopping before crossing the river to toss a handful of water on his face in a small purification rite—these things opened up the most secret part of himself, they connected him to the power he needed to perform, indeed, to survive, his dance. Today, her presence at his back was a note in this symphony.

They arrived, and he began. His sword lay in his hands like a live thing, his pulse echoing into and out of the wood and steel and ray skin in the old, familiar bond. He could tell it was going to be a good session—he was rested, the day was fine, the earth was with him. But there was something else, an extra push in each move, his feet seeming to skim the ground, his focus just a little sharper.

As he approached what he thought of as the threshold between warm-up and sword work, he felt his power build, felt his self expand into new territory, wild and unexplored. He paused as usual to gather himself, but no gathering was needed. Instead, all of it—his ability, his mind, nature itself—was open and ready, trembling at his fingertips.

And when he dived into his sword's spirit—the partnership that made him the protector of the weak and the slayer of evil—he was swept into a whirlwind of power that he'd never experienced, blinding and uncontrollable. But he was surprised to find that it wasn't uncontrollable. Or rather, it needed no control. It was him, his very self, a pure expression of his finest being, clear and unfettered and free.

And then he finished—his lethal strikes, the ones that slew evil, that made him who he was. But he did not feel the release that always came with conclusion, and it came to him in a shock as powerful as those strikes: He was not done, and she was the reason. The difference in this extraordinary session had been her. Her energy, joining with his. Her spirit, boosting him into another plane. Their connection had crossed some kind of barrier. And it was not broken even yet.

Her figure was a faint smudge through the dusty haze that he'd kicked up. He must finish what he'd started. He advanced on her, feeling her pull on him, like a ball of lightning between them. As he neared her, a niggle of doubt, and a rise of hope, chattered at the back of his mind, but he needn't have worried. He hardly had time to take a breath before she was on him, and he staggered with the force of her embrace. He crushed her body to his and drank her in, wanting to consume her, to have her, in a sense that he didn't understand. The feeling of holding both his weapon and his woman at the same time was intoxicating. And then it was time to drop his sword.

Afterward, they lay for some time in the fragrant grasses, soaking up the heat and breathing in the aromatic mist that rose from the plants they'd crushed. He came back to himself slowly, like recovering from a fever. She rolled onto her side toward him and traced a fingertip around his ear and down his neck, which tickled somewhere inside his throat and set his spine tingling. He hadn't yet the wit or coordination to react.

He liked the feeling of her cheek lying on his arm, the weight of it, its soft heat. She was talking, asking him something, but what? He couldn't make the words form thoughts. It didn't matter. He didn't care about anything at the moment. His mouth answered.

"Yes."

"Yes? I can?" She had lifted her head to look into his face and the little fresh breeze between them stirred the fine hairs in his armpit.

"Of course. Whatever you like." His head was still floating in a haze.

She sat up and began to look around, for, he assumed, her trousers. He would be no help with that. He hardly knew where his own limbs were. He closed his eyes, and almost dozed. Then a shadow fell over his face, and he looked up to find her standing over him, naked except for her blouse hanging loose at her sides. His sword lay across her outstretched palms.

 _My sword… In her hands—?!_ He froze, his heart in his mouth. He was awake now.

"It's so light. It's much lighter than my father's sword was. Why is that?"

His mouth gaped open and then shut. He barely registered her words; he certainly couldn't answer them. All he knew was that his sword—his heart, his life and soul—was being handled by another. _Easy, take this very easy._ He didn't know whether his advice was for her or for himself. At last he managed, "It's a… a fighting sword." He breathed his words carefully, very calm, very smooth. "It must be—" He searched for a word to express the destruction worked by the two of them as they divided the quick from the dead. "—fast."

"It's so beautiful."

The hilt lay in her left palm, and the tip in her right. Sunlight bounced off the pale silver blade, flashing around the clearing. She was holding it as for the start of inspection, correct except in its orientation: Its killing edge was toward her, and mere inches from her torso.

Rising as gently as mist, he moved toward her. "May I… help you… with that?"

She laughed lightly, and said, "I just wanted to feel it."

"Ah. Yes." His sword had been made particularly light for lightning-fast slicing. A mere thought could move it. In fact, it was so easy to move that it was extraordinarily difficult to control. When he'd first gotten it, it had felt positively alive in his hands, and he'd had to work hard to learn to think ahead of it. He reached out slowly toward the hilt, trying to maintain focus on both it and her eyes, holding her attention with his will. So close now…

Then she shifted it in her hands to hand the hilt to him. Perhaps she turned it in too wide an arc. Perhaps she overbalanced it. It would have taken no more than a feather's touch. She wouldn't even have felt it happen.

But it didn't matter how it happened, or why. All that mattered, all he could see or think about as he grabbed the hilt and snatched it out of her hand, was blood. Her blood. On his blade.


	51. 49: Triage

**Harvest**

Chapter 49: Triage

 _In which Kenshin takes Tomoe home._

Sickly sweet and nauseating, the metallic stench of blood bloomed in the air, oozing its way into his nostrils. He pushed his offended stomach back down into place. The wound was not long, but it was deep, and blood poured from it like water. She stood stock still, staring down at it, uncomprehending.

He, on the other hand, was busy.

Depending on exactly where it was along the inner surface of her thigh, and exactly how deep it was, this was a death cut. If the blade had sunk to the artery, there was no staunching it and she would bleed to death—nothing he could do. He pulled her to the ground and knelt beside her. There was already so much blood that he couldn't see anything with certainty, so he leaned over her leg and felt along the opening in her flesh for the unmistakable pa-pump-pa-pump of an artery emptying itself. He felt her blood slipping through his fingers.

"What… what happened?" she asked in a tiny voice.

He breathed out in relief. It was not the artery. But the cut was deep, and bleeding profusely. He must stop the flow. He began to wrestle her top off her. At this, she started to protest. It was one thing to succumb to passion in a secluded forest clearing smack in the middle of the day, but this… She would be completely naked!

"No! Leave me my clothes!" She wondered about her trousers. "At least my top."

He paid no attention, and before she could protest again he'd stripped her. With his blade, he made a careful nick through the thick, hemmed front edge of her shirt down into the single ply of the garment's body. Holding one end between his teeth and pulling on it with his hands, he tore a long, wide strip off the shirt's bottom.

"Wait... Stop! That's my only blouse!"

He spoke without looking up. "Your blouse we can replace. Your leg we cannot." He used a clean patch of the top to wipe away most of the blood, and then wound the strip around her thigh, crossing it over itself and slanting it up from knee to groin, carefully bringing the edges of the wound together as he went, gauging the tautness so it would stop the flow but not cut off circulation. He tied the ends together. There would be a scar; he couldn't prevent that.

"Come. We must get you to the river to wash that." He examined her face, looking for signs of shock, felt the artery in her neck. "How do you feel now?"

"All right. Just a little—" She stood, but she was wobbly, and she braced herself against his shoulder where he still squatted. "I will be all right, I think."

"Wait here." He put out his hand to steady her as he backed away, then turned and retrieved his kimono, her trousers, and her bundle. As he reached her, she grasped his arm heavily. Her face was waxy under its summer color, and her forehead glistened in the sunlight. "Here, put this on." He helped her into his kimono, then her trousers, and then lowered her back down to the ground. "Please sit a moment."

He pulled on his own trousers and tied them hastily. When he picked up his sword and tried to flick it clean, it was too late. The blood had already congealed in the sun and the heat, and bits of leaf rot stuck out all along its length. He found the scabbard and slid the blade home, feeling the drag of blood smearing the inside. It made his skin crawl. He promised it a good soak in the river, but that would have to wait.

He returned to her side, and put his arms under hers to help her up, but she took hold of him and said, "Wait. I must say something."

"It can wait."

"No. I have to say this. This work you do, what you will return to—"

But her wounded leg gave a little, and he caught her tight against him. He felt her clammy face against his chest and that decided him. She was probably a little delirious, and in any case he did not want this kind of distraction now.

Almost roughly, he threw her arm over his shoulder. "Talk will wait. We cannot stay here." He hefted her a little higher, so that he was virtually carrying her. "Come. Let's get you home."


	52. 50: Staying Alive

**Harvest**

Chapter 50: Staying Alive

 _Nurse Kenshin._

The next few days were quiet ones. Her wound, coupled with the events in the clearing, had weakened and exhausted her. He made broth from dried fish and root vegetables. Her rice he cooked until it was very soft. He changed her bandage, and washed the cut, and used a salve from the medicine chest to keep out infection. He kept her lying down, and encouraged her to sleep as much as possible, allowing her to sit up with him on the porch in the cool evenings for only a single bowl of tea, and settling the house down for both of them as soon as the sun set. He left the cabin to fetch in water and relieve himself; otherwise he was at her side.

He did step out onto the porch to clean the dried, sticky mess that was his sword; he couldn't have that inside their home. He'd never sheathed his blade with blood on it before. He didn't want to leave long enough to take it to the river, and he'd had to run water down beside the steel three times before the scabbard released it. Disgusting.

At night, he slept in his old corner, keeping watch. He ran his hands over her skin often, monitoring her temperature. She slept deeply these nights, barely stirring, her hands folded serenely over her stomach. A beautiful statue.

He did not sleep much. Instead, he thought. He thought about her recovery, gauging how well it was going, evaluating the return of her strength. Planning what to feed her the next day.

And he remembered. That day at the inn when he'd nearly killed her, the first time that their bodies had touched—if you didn't count that rainy, bloody night in the alley, and he never counted that—by some miracle, he had not cut her then. He should have, and he'd never figured out how he hadn't. But this time—their connection now so strong, so intimate—this time his blade had bloodied her, and he couldn't figure out how that had happened, either. Was he more dangerous to her as a lover than as an enemy?

Mostly, however, as he sat on the porch watching the sun transit and the stars wheel, feeling the air cool as summer gave way to autumn, listening to her breathe behind him, he puzzled about that strange session. There was no mistaking that joining of their energies, of their spirits. The mystery was why it had happened. What was it about her that had created that momentary world? What did her presence in his life mean? Was it a warning? A sign? He wished for his master's counsel, abrasive as he knew it would be.

But he kept coming back to the thing that chilled him: the danger he posed to her. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that the connection they'd experienced meant that their lives were entangled far more deeply than by simple association. Their fates were one. What happened to one would happen to the other; the choices made by one would steer the life of the other as well. His life of violence and death would be her life, too, and the inevitable corruption of his soul would also taint hers. She would suffer the same consequences as he—if she stayed.

He could not tell her all this. He was certain she would not take his word for it—he'd come to cherish her stubbornness and independence, but it would not serve her well in this instance—and, besides, if she were to escape his fate, it would have to be her own decision. His sending her away would do nothing to save her.

He knew he should leave her. He even knew that his love for her required it. He could not make himself finish this train of thought. He could not bear what it meant. And so he thought a new thought. He would accept what life would give him, what she could give him. For now. He would have the days that he could have with her. He would allow her to live her own life, to come to her own decisions. He would keep his heart open. And when she came to her senses, when she chose happiness without him over misery with him, he would let her go. He would not stop her.

* * *

She was dimly aware of his presence, and deeply grateful for his nursing. He wrapped her leg in such a way that it didn't seem to need stitches. He knew exactly when to bring her tea or broth, or when her wound needed re-dressing, and she began to feel stronger more quickly than she'd imagined.

She slept, she rested, she dozed, she ate what he brought her. And she didn't talk. She would open her eyes and see him, his back, sitting on the porch, watching the sky, still as stone, and she was loath to break whatever spell he was weaving. She had her own thoughts to work through.

At the beginning, at the very beginning, his violent nature had both repelled and, to her consternation, attracted her. Even as she lived with him and they began to create a haven of peace, her memories of watching him work, of knowing what he did when he left the cabin each day—this knowledge aroused her. It deepened her response to him, left her breathless after their love.

But now she was ashamed of that, of how she had held him in her desire as an icon of thrilling chaos. Now, she saw him as a human, specific, and whole. A man she loved and for whom she wished only happiness. The violence of his work was no longer a fetish to her. It was a monster that was eating him alive, and she wanted it to stop.


	53. 51: Exorcism

**Harvest**

Chapter 51: Exorcism

 _In which Tomoe explains Kenshin's situation to him._

By the time they'd reached the cabin, she barely registered where she was. Her mind a fog, she remembered the pause at the river, where with gentle fingertips he unwound the soaked wrap and rinsed both it and the open wound in the cool water and re-wrapped her leg with the wet cloth. It immediately showed a spreading line of red along its length. The next thing she remembered was arriving home, and struggling to get undressed.

He helped her into her yukata, and then settled her onto the futon. During the rest of that day, and through that first night, he kept a fire burning, and woke her with cups of broth and tea, and she slept like the dead.

By the next evening, she felt a little better, and raised herself on one palm. He came over to help her up, or so she thought, but he instead did something quick and perplexing with her elbow, and she found herself horizontal again. "Please stay down," he said.

"No." She struggled up again. "I want to sit up. Just for a minute, please." It took a lot of breath to get all that out.

He thought that over. "Wait. I'll make some tea, and we can sit on the porch."

That was fine with her. This little exertion had left her winded, and she was glad to rest before trying her strength against the journey out the door.

She could hear him pouring the water, the two tiny taps as he set the bowls on the tray. He didn't bother to avoid that place where the tatami always creaked, and then he was back squatting at her side. "The tea is ready." He searched her face. "Are you sure you want to do this? You are still weak—"

She was most certain that she wanted to do this. Sitting up would be good for her. Her mother had often warned her against the dangers of too much lying down when recovering from sickness and injury. And for this, she needed him seeing her as an equal, not an invalid.

Night was creeping over the top of the mountain, and stars flickered in the sky to the east. Autumn's shorter days and longer nights had already prompted them to bring out the extra quilts, and the garden was carpeted with crisp leaves, red, yellow, brown.

After helping her onto the porch, he went back inside and brought out a quilt. He settled it around her shoulders and tucked it under her legs. She sighed into its instant flush of warmth.

"How are you feeling?"

"This is nice." She clutched the quilt closer around her. "The warmth eases the pain."

"Do not overtax yourself." He handed over her bowl of tea, and took up his own. In the lulling quiet, he turned his face to the sky, and she could tell he was allowing his thoughts to wander. She watched a tendril of steam work its way through the hair around his face, and the sight tugged at her heart.

Now. "Kenshin." That got his attention. She had never called him that.

He turned toward her quickly, almost spilling his tea. "Yes? What is it? Do you need to lie down?" He set down his bowl and began to rise.

"No." She put a calming hand on his arm. "No, I'm fine. But I do have something to say to you." She set down her own bowl. "Something important."

She shifted to face him a little more. She held her hands very calmly in her lap beneath the enveloping quilt. "That day. That day in the clearing. When I watched you." He sat back a little, and his whole body stilled. "When I was hurt, you—" She raised her chin to look him directly in the face. "You were upset."

"Of course." His stillness became tension.

"Yes. 'Of course.' Certainly, 'of course.' Any person with a heart would be upset by something like that."

He took up his bowl again and sipped, hiding his face.

"May I ask you something?"

He didn't look up. "Yes."

"What are you?"

That made him look up. " 'What' am—? I don't understand."

"I mean, when you think of your purpose in the world—"

 _Oh. That's easy._ "I am a patriot." A pause, then, quietly, "I… used to be a patriot."

She was mindful of their last heavy conversation. If she were not to scare him silent this time, she would need to put him at his ease. Gently, then. " 'Used to be'?"

He didn't answer, only looked down at his tea, no longer steaming. In these first days of the changing season, tea cooled quickly. It was almost time to switch to the winter mugs.

"Well, then, what are you now?"

She saw his fingers tighten around the bowl, the tips turning white, the tendons in his hand straining. She waited. She wouldn't press, but she was sure he would never explore this on his own. And he must. If he were to live, he must.

An owl shrieked its night call, the one heard after a kill. "A murderer." His voice was calm enough, but the note of bitterness in it made her throat tighten.

She reached out her fingers to his tense hand, and gently moved it down to the tray. He released the bowl obediently. His fingertips retained deep creases from its sharp rim.

"It's true that you have made yourself an assassin, a slayer of men." At the pained look on his face, she corrected herself, "A slayer of evil. Yes. But a man who kills must first kill his own heart. He must deny his humanity. To do that work, you cannot afford to have a heart." She longed to embrace him, as she used to do Enishi when she soothed a scraped knee, or helped him to understand a playmate's harsh words. When they grieved together over their mother.

But she feared derailing her message, and so she only leaned a little closer and traced two fingertips along his scar, hidden behind the barrier of his hair. He didn't pull away. He didn't even flinch. "That is the one thing you have failed at. You still have your heart, and compassion runs deep within it." She covered his scar with her palm. "You must stop this. You must give it up."

He pulled away from her hand, and his face hardened, but she did not believe it. "It is killing you. Your heart is killing you." She stepped through her next words. "This life will drive you mad. It will turn you into a demon." She put a hand on his arm. "And you are not meant to be a demon."

He squeezed his eyes shut and looked away. He shook his head. "No." His voice was rough, and he continued with finality. "No. There is nothing else for me. It is who I am."

"I can't believe that. But even if that were true, what you are doing now is damaging both yourself and your cause. You are not protecting anyone's happiness." She pulled his head down to touch his forehead with hers. She whispered, "It will destroy you."


	54. 52: Obon

**Harvest**

Chapter 52: Obon

 _In which a tiny boat bears a light, Kenshin dances, and the saké is good._

"This is the last night of Obon. Would you like to stay for the fireworks?"

The festival was in full, raucous sway, and the town's center was packed, its streets rivers of celebrants. They could hardly move without brushing against someone, threading their way through the crowd. Even children couldn't run and play as usual. When she had asked him to accompany her on the first day, neither of them had expected to enjoy it as much as they had. By this time, on the third and last day, they had spent much of each day in town, eating, watching puppet shows and magicians, drinking, acrobats and martial arts demonstrations, more eating, strolling along the lake's shore. A little more drinking. They had even both joined in the Bon-Odori, the communal dance that culminated the festival. The space around the tall platform that held the drummers and musicians was thick with what looked like the entire town. Young children and old men and women, farmers and fishermen, merchants and housewives, councilmen and jailers moved together around the circle in the traditional steps. It was his first time, so he needed her help in following the steps, but he was keen to try. Tonight's revelry was especially ebullient, and he thought at first she hadn't heard his question, so he put an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. In her ear: "Shall we watch the lights?"

She colored at this public display of their attachment, but turned and smiled at him. "Yes!" She had to almost shout to hear her own voice.

He grinned at hearing his wife's raised voice, took her hand, and led her away to a quieter spot. As they moved away from the noise and lights, the early evening's dusk and silence fell behind them like a curtain. When they reached the shelter of the big willow tree that overhung the river in the tiny park, he turned to her to offer her his idea. He wanted her to know that his intention was to help her honor her mother, and he thought he knew what he wanted to say, but here in the cool dark, with her face, her eyes, inches from his, he couldn't begin. He didn't want to presume, and he didn't want to cause her pain, and he couldn't find the words, and his heart was full of her, so instead he pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her full on the mouth. He hadn't had her upbringing, and although he'd seen how other couples behaved in public, he didn't have the instincts for it. He released her and stepped back. "Forgive me."

But she didn't pull away. "Please don't apologize." She laid a hand on his cheek, and touched her forehead to his. "No one can see us here."

"I just wanted to tell you…" he began. No, that wasn't right. "For the festival…" No. The problem was that the festival was such a gay event, and what he wanted to give her was something tender and private. He knew that, in the years since her mother's death, she'd never had the freedom to express her own grief. She'd taken over her mother's role, propping up her broken father, rearing her rootless brother, keeping the family moored. In service at headquarters, she had worked and slept in the company of the other girls, hardly a moment to herself. And here on the mountainside with him…

She laid a hand on his arm. "It's all right. Just tell me what's in your heart."

"Your mother…" he began again. "It's quiet here, and perhaps you would like to be alone with her."

Her face softened into that rare, poignant smile that always cut straight to his heart. "I've never floated a light for her."

Even in the faint glow from the distant lights of the festival he could see her eyes shining. "Would you allow me to choose one for you?" She only nodded once, jerkily, but he could hear tears in her breathing. "Please wait here," he said as he gestured toward the split-log bench. "I won't be long." It was all he could do to leave her there, her pale kimono glowing in the moonlight and her beautiful grief cloaked by the night.

He did hurry. Earlier, he'd seen the lantern he wanted for her—the style in this region was a simple open-topped cube, but he'd seen one with a roof that looked like nothing so much as their own tiny home—so that was the work of a few minutes. The vendor took his coin, and, before handing it to him, lit the interior candle with a bamboo twig he touched to the candle at his elbow. He held it in both hands as he worked his way through the crowd back toward her. Almost there, his attention was caught by a saké seller's stall. For such a tiny space, it was remarkably well-stocked. One particular jug caught his eye. It was earthenware, and painted like the one his master had kept floating in the ice-melt river that ran by their training field. It even had the same kind of straw tassel hanging from its neck, though it was much smaller than the one that had supplied his master. Once, he had been allowed a sip from his master's bowl. He'd choked as fire filled his throat and then lungs, but the wine's heavenly flavor had burned itself into his memory. On a sudden impulse, he purchased the little flask, even though it was a little more expensive than he'd imagined, and tucked it into his obi, then picked up the lantern again. By the time he returned, he could tell she was more composed, and he was glad to have given her these few minutes to herself.

She rose from the bench as he approached, and kissed him on his cheek as she took the lantern boat. "Thank you, husband."

"I will wait for you at the river's mouth." He scratched the back of his neck and ducked his head teasingly: "Perhaps I'll find that nikuman vendor again while you're not looking."

He tilted his head in a little bow and turned to walk away. He didn't look back until he'd reached the crowd. Knowing he was hidden by the throng, he turned to check on her. What he saw made him want to run back, but he knew that would be a mistake. She was kneeling by the river's edge, with the little paper house nestled on her lap, but even from this distance, he could tell that she was weeping. She remained like that for a time, and he could only watch, his heart breaking for her, his arms aching to hold her. Finally, she set the boat on the ground, stood, and clapped her hands twice. After a moment with her head bowed, she stooped and, taking a tentative step into the shallow water, she reached the little boat out onto the water. It bobbed and circled, and then, catching the current, it moved out into the center of the river. He watched as the candle braved its journey alone, his own throat tight.

Later, they sat together on their porch watching the stars twinkling in the crisp black sky. Suddenly, out over the lake beyond the town, a rising star of light burst into a dazzling flower, and a second later the pop and fizz of the explosion reached them. The fireworks had begun. Something about that made him remember the saké. "Oh!" he said, making her flinch beside him. She looked at him with wide eyes, and he apologized. "Forgive me for startling you! I forgot something inside. Please wait a moment. I'll be right back."

He fetched the saké flask from underneath his folded hakama and kimono where he'd hidden it as they changed for sleep. The coals were still hot, so he loosened the stopper and nestled the bottle deep into the ashes. Despite the evening chill, he would use their summer tea bowls so that, in the nearly moonless dark, the stars would reflect on the wide surface of the liquid. He hovered his hand over the stopper until he felt a warm mist rise, then he tucked the two bowls into the sleeve of his yukata and, holding the flask gingerly between two fingers, one on the stopper and one on the flask's bottom, he went back outside and sat next to her. He poured the silvery saké into each bowl, and handed hers to her with both hands. "For us," he said as he picked up his own. She smiled, and they sipped together. The warmth of the wine and the cold of the night, the sparkle of the stars and the frisson of the fireworks, the shine of her eyes—he was happy.

The saké slid over his tongue, warm and sweet and fiery. He'd never tasted better.

* * *

A pale, waning crescent floats high above the cabin. In the crisp midnight sky, stars glitters like shards of glass against black silk. A small dormouse rustles its way through the faded garden, gleaning wilted leaves and leftover insects. On a branch high above, the small red owl, its yellow eyes glowing in the dim light, watches and waits. At the right moment, it will drop from its branch in its silent swoop, its eight razor-sharp talons ready to crush its unsuspecting prey.

She lay awake next to her sleeping husband, her head on his shoulder, riding the slow rise and fall of his breathing. He sometimes fell asleep first these fall days, but something was keeping her awake even longer than usual tonight. The scenes of this night's festivities kept running through her head. The huge circle of the Bon Odori, thick with dancers young and old moving together in the ancient steps. Her husband, glimpsed across the dense crowd, dancing with abandon and laughing with some boys near him, his hair ribboning around him as he clapped and leapt in time with his neighbors. The change had crept up on her, but she thought that, were it not for that hair, she might not recognize him as the same person she'd followed to this mountainside nearly half a year ago. His smile came easy now, as did his words, and they often laughed together over small things. She hadn't expected the quiet river and the glowing little boat, nor the bittersweet release of finally honoring her mother's spirit as she watched the paper craft float away on the black water, accompanied by a flotilla of fallen leaves releasing a scent something like cinnamon.

In secret, something in her heart had shifted over the summer. That day she'd watched his kata—the beauty of it, its expression of power and passion—had stayed in the back of her mind. Not for the first time, she wondered why it must be so inseparably linked to pain and death. He had a good heart and a strong mind. Was there no way for his skills to work for good? For life?

An audacious idea began to form in her. Could he, would it be possible, if she were to ask him carefully… Might he be willing to consider leaving Katsura? Perhaps she could plant a seed in his mind—the idea of living his own life, one devoid of violence and blood and murder. The life of a human. She wanted him to remain as happy as he looked at this moment. She wanted never again to hear him say, "I will not live for long." And she had to admit the truth: She wanted to be in that life, with him.


	55. 53: Scenes in the Snow

**The Quiet Life**

Chapter 53: Scenes in the Snow

 _In which they winter over._

The first snow of winter would fall any day now. The morning frost, at first confined to delicate tracery at the edges of leaves and crystallized tendrils that crept out across puddles, now fought back against being walked on, crackling underfoot and crumbling in slippery, spiteful ways. The few leaves still clinging to black branches were no longer beautiful—brown, shriveled, hanging on stubbornly even in death—and their fallen comrades crunched under his feet whenever he walked out to the well. She could hear it even in the cabin.

The day was cold and the sky leaden, and she scrunched herself further down under the quilt after the little puff of cold air his rising let in, down into their warm cocoon. She heard him dressing to go out and fetch water for tea. She blessed him for his insensitivity to cold, and his ability to rise without the sun, and his willingness to do these ungodly early chores—she'd had her fill of that at the inn. She heard him step outside, and then she decided she couldn't bear for him to find her still in bed when he returned. By the time he returned, she had the fire going again, and the cabin was beginning to warm up.

During the day, the temperature dropped hourly, and she was grateful that they'd had the foresight to bring in plenty of firewood and water. Winters at home had never sunk to this bone-chilling cold. In the afternoon, it began to snow gently, and she braced herself for even more unbearable chill, but, to her surprise, as the snow accumulated outside, the temperature evened out, allowing them to sit out on the porch in the evening for a few minutes to watch the town's lights blink on. She'd not realized until this moment how accustomed she'd become to the noises of their mountainside—birds, insects, wind in the trees—all hushed now. Only the river could still be heard, faintly whispering though the trees. She wondered whether it, too, would eventually fall silent under a roof of ice.

In the evening, he approached her hesitantly. "Anō…" He sat calmly enough, but his posture was deferential.

She could not resist him when he was like this. "Yes, my husband?"

"Your diary— Do you have any pages that are blank? That you could spare? Or… that I could use? Have? I mean, that I could write on?" He still hadn't looked at her, and she wondered what he could be trying to get at. "And your brush. That is, could I borrow your brush?"

"Of course." She rose and went behind the screen, returning with a few pages and the ink set from her writing table. "Would you like me to mix the ink for you?" She was burning with curiosity, but knew better than to press him.

"Thank you, no. I can manage." He smiled up at her now, and took the tray from her. The only light suitable for writing by was a single candle in the rusty iron stand he'd found in the lean-to. He worked over his pages for many evenings, and when he wasn't working on them, he stacked them neatly under his sword. She took the hint. She mustn't look.

Days later, he showed her the haiku he'd written. She liked them, but when she praised them, he just said that he'd only tried to express the beauty he'd seen around them, that it was nothing to do with his skill. She could tell, however, that her good opinion was what he'd hoped for.

* * *

They were an odd pair. She was a classic beauty, if a little too tall. He was shorter, with hair and eyes of no normal color, and a face that carried an ugly scar. Some might even find him repellent. Certainly there were those who shrank from him. Both projected an air of distance. Her calm could be eerie, and he could seem almost to fade in and out if you didn't keep a steady eye on him.

But Shiori was not repelled by, much less did she shrink from, either of them. When they came to town, she noticed them, and they began to welcome her company. She told them all the gossip, and she told them which merchants were not trustworthy. She even invited them to her home. They came once, and the five of them—her mother and sister, herself, and the couple—spent a pleasant evening together. Shiori was especially fascinated by how Koko acted around their guests, and, even more, by how they responded. During their visit, the child ran in and out, bringing them presents—crushed flowers, her childish drawing of the family cat, something that once upon a time may have been a plum from their tree—and invited herself into their laps, first one, then the other, even asking to touch his red hair. Shiori watched as their reserve melted, saw their gentle way with her, noticed their eyes follow the little girl as she made a nuisance of herself. It was so remarkable that she forgot to apologize for her sister, and when she finally did remember, it was too late. It would seem as though she were criticizing their indulgence.

That was their only visit to the Iwata house, but afterwards the couple sought her out on market day, and usually ate with her while one or the other of them held Koko on a knee, or allowed her to drag them away on some childish expedition.

* * *

"What is this?"

She knelt to set down the two steaming bowls, one in front of each of them, and replied, "Mushroom and onion stew. This is how my mother made it."

The rich aroma made his empty stomach cramp with anticipation, and had to exert his greatest self-control to wait for her to sit and pick up her chopsticks before he simply lifted the bowl to his mouth and sucked in a large mouthful. His whole body cried out in response to the earthy, salty broth as it washed over his tongue and down his throat. He closed his eyes and almost moaned with pleasure. Then he suddenly remembered he was not alone, and opened them, the bowl still at his lips. He cut his eyes over to his wife, who also held her bowl up close to her mouth, but she was eating like a civilized person instead of a half-starved street urchin. She was staring at him, with a mushroom in her chopsticks midway between her bowl and mouth.

He chewed and swallowed the mushrooms and onions he had taken in, and put his bowl down, embarrassed. "Please forgive me. It was so delicious. I forgot my manners."

"I'm glad you like it." She watched him pick up his chopsticks and the bowl, this time properly. She smiled her secret smile. "It's one of my favorites, too."

"Why have you not made this before?" He felt he could live on just this soup at every meal. "Will you make it again? Soon?"

"I've just found a mushroom patch near the river." He had his bowl tilted up, draining the last dregs. "Yes, I will make it as long as I can get the mushrooms."

He took the bowl down, and looked at her. She recognized that look of driven passion, and felt it wise to satisfy it at once.

"There's more."

* * *

As she emerged from her dressing area this morning, he glanced up at her quizzically, but said nothing, and quickly looked away when she returned his stare. Throughout the day she could feel his surreptitious gaze on her, only to have it flicker away when she looked over at him. Finally, that evening, when he poured her tea, and, startlingly, slopped a drop over the rim because he was watching her rather than her tea bowl, she'd had enough. "What? What is troubling you today?"

He ducked his head in apology, and mumbled something she couldn't make out.

"I… what? What did you say?"

"You— Anō… you're different, today." He finally stuttered.

" 'Different'? How am I different? What are you talking about?" Even still, he could be the most exasperating conversationalist.

"I mean— Please forgive me." He gulped and tried again. "You smell different."

"I smell different? What can you—?" She stopped abruptly, and then laughed right in his face.

He reddened in obvious embarrassment, and from his expression she could tell he thought she was mocking him. "I'm sorry, Tomoe-san,"—the formality made her want to laugh even harder, but she couldn't bear to increase his discomfort—"I didn't mean to insult you. I only meant… I mean… Your perfume…"

By now she couldn't help it, and she fell on him, her arms around his neck, almost weeping with laughter. He pulled away stiffly, but she took his face between her hands, and kissed him tenderly on his pressed-together lips. Then she drew back a little and rested her forehead on his. "No, my husband, I've decided it doesn't fit with my life here. What you smell now is me. Only me."

She could feel him melt against her, and he returned her embrace, whispering in her ear, "I like it."

* * *

Winter agrees with them. Mornings are soft and silvery, and the sun glows more than shines through the heavy fog that blankets the mountainside. The snow muffles what few sounds there are, and sometimes they can hear the water in the well squeak and crack as it re-shapes itself.

The harvest had been abundant, and they eat sumptuously from it. Her face, no longer assaulted by the sun, regains its porcelain gleam, even as her body grows robust: rounder, firmer breasts, a little curve in the hips and belly, and softer arms. He is entranced with how she glows, the ripeness of her body under his hands. Neither of them has worked outside for many weeks now. His callouses have lost their edges; his skin is smoother all over. She, apparently, feels her good health, too. Their love takes on an especially sensual quality, freer and more intimate. They are familiar with each other.

Their days require little from them in the way of chores, and they amuse each other with stories and games, haiku and song. There are days when they barely leave their futon except for more tea and leftover rice. As the nights grow colder, they lay both of their kimono on top of the quilt.

They are hibernating.

* * *

Sometimes, if he drinks more than his usual two cups of tea at dinner, he wakes in the night and leaves the warmth of their shared nest to relieve himself, his hot stream making a little steaming pool in the snow just beyond the edge of the porch. He lingers outside, delighting in the freezing air against his skin, watching his breath float in a cloud before his face. On clear nights, the sky is alive with stars, the black background the sheerest net holding its catch. Some nights, the moon hides itself behind a sheet of icy clouds. Once, clouds obscured the stars and the moon was new, so he was shrouded in crisp, utter blackness, and he had to find the edge of the porch with his toes. He may still be a creature of the night, indeed, may always be one, but now he is a happy one.

When he does finally come back inside, his skin is like ice. As he slides under the quilt, he takes care that his chilled body does not touch hers until he's warmed up, but sometimes she wakes anyway. Soon they are both warm again, if no longer asleep.

* * *

He wakes out of a sound sleep, wide awake. Maybe it was the moon. It is full and bright, and seems to hang just off the roof's edge. He looks over at her, but she is dead to the world. They left the fire going when they went to bed, and it's too hot in the cabin. It makes him restless. He lies next to her in the dark and tries to go back to sleep. He closes his eyes, and waits, but sleep evades him, so he turns onto his side and props himself on his elbow. Watches her sleep. Listens to her slow breathing. She was different when she was asleep. Her polished elegance fell away, and it seemed he could see the child she had been in the unguarded face, the parted lips, the warm breath that slipped in and out of her with no thought, no care or fear. He thought about what she'd told him of her history, and he tried to imagine what it would be like to have a warm, close family. And then to have that family crumble in your very hands. He shook his head. It was like a foreign country to him, but he was no stranger to pain, and all he could think was how badly he wished he could rewrite her history.

He smoothed her hair back from her cheek, and she stirred. Even before she woke, she smiled. Her eyes opened, and her smile spread into her sleepy gaze. She reached up a warm arm around his neck, pulled him down next to her, kissed his mouth, snuggled into his neck and sank back into her night.

Now he will sleep.

* * *

A gray winter's day. The sun is a pale yellow ball in a soft sky. That's it—just gray sky, yellow sun, white snow, black tree trunks. The snow had fallen all the still, windless night, and had reached the level of the porch, so that it seemed they could walk straight out onto it.

They spent the morning inside the cabin with insignificant little chores. When the time came for their midday meal, he laid out their meal trays while she started their tea and dragged their quilts out onto the porch. Now they sat with their quilts around their shoulders and sipped from their tea mugs and picked at their rice and fish and pickled gobo. She recited a haiku she had composed for him, and he told her of the time his single friend at headquarters exchanged his uniform kimono for that of one of the women, and he'd had to wear the flowered thing for an hour until he found his hidden under the big table in the kitchen. Many people had laughed; in the end, even he couldn't be angry.

As they ate, they watched the rabbits nosing into the snow to ferret out bits of garden leftovers, and speculated about just how many deer there were in the group they could hear stripping a tree just out of site. A pleasant silence settled over them. A thin layer of cloud moved over the sun, and the air cooled.

She pulled her quilt closer around her neck. "Shall we go back inside? The sun is behind the hill, and it will soon get cold."

But he was silent, and seemed lost in thought. She waited for him. She had learned how not to rush him. The rabbits had left for their dens, and even the deer had gone before he spoke. He was looking down at his hands, not at her.

"I have decided something that you should know."

"What is it, my husband?"

"I have sheathed my sword."

She looked him full in the face, her eyes wide.

"I cannot tell what that will come to. In the future, I mean. I have not yet solved the riddle of my life." He raised his eyes to meet her. "But I have done this."

* * *

She wakes weeping.

"Shh, shh. It was just a dream," he breathes into her ear. In the delicious warmth under their quilt, he holds her body, soft and lush in these deep winter days, close to his. She is asleep again, but he is not, and he shifts up to his elbow, traces a finger along her face and tucks her cool hair behind her perfect ear. He will ask her.

"Anata."

She takes a deep, slow breath, but is otherwise unresponsive.

He runs a hand down her arm. "Anata."

She stirs sleepily. "Yes?" She doesn't even open her eyes.

"Are you well?"

"Am I… what?" she mumbles.

"Lately, when you… I mean, you are not ill in any way?"

She is already fading. "No, dear. I am quite well." She yawns and settles her head a little higher on his shoulder. She whispers, "Go back to sleep."

She won't remember this exchange in the morning. He remains awake, wondering. He's not smelled blood from her since before the snow.


	56. 54: And Release

**The Quiet Life**

Chapter 54: …And Release

 _In which Enishi's allies finish with him._

"Shouldn't we send the boy to her now?"

"Are you questioning my decision?"

"Forgive me." Iizuka bowed subserviently from his kneeling position. "I only thought—"

"We have nothing to gain by it. It's going well enough." Tatsumi believed in economy of action, and he had never trusted the judgment of this cur that he found himself regrettably allied with.

"He comes to town often, right? For… shopping!" Tatsumi's disdain fairly dripped. "And he's always with her. He's obviously off his guard." Tatsumi took up his pipe and tended to its lighting. "Didn't you just verify that for us?" The tobacco didn't catch, and he knocked the pipe against his tea tray to empty the spent ashes. He tamped a few new leaves into the bowl and fiddled a bamboo twig out of the bunch splayed in a nearby cup. He touched it to his candle's flame, and curled his fingers around its glowing end as he carried it to his pipe. "It shouldn't be long now." He didn't even glance at the man kneeling before him. The subject was closed.

"She has fallen in love with him. I could see it in her eyes."

This made the General stop and look up. "Do you think this is something she has arranged? To shield herself from him in some way?"

It was Iizuka's turn to avoid eye contact. He felt this little trick intimidated his listeners. "No, her seduction is of her own making." He sneered. "Her woman's heart is fickle. And she was lonely. I think her dedication is wavering." He picked up his tea bowl and took a sip. Still too hot. Put it down again. "That's why I recommend allowing her brother to visit her. If she sees him, I think it will remind her why she is there." _And the kid is pestering me to death about her!_

"You think she is undermining our purpose with him? Is her information unreliable?"

"No. Or rather… Perhaps she has become… unpredictable. Think of the brother as…" He leaned forward conspiratorially. "As insurance." He didn't notice the other man shift away from him, or see the almost imperceptible curl to the General's lip.

Through the open shoji, winter's icy tendrils curled in from the inner garden. Evening shadows lengthened, and the dazzling snow dimmed to a faint blue under the deepening sky.

Tatsumi smoked for some time in silence. Iizuka's tea cooled enough for him to sip, and then to finish, but he waited with unusual patience for his superior to speak. "Drop her. The dragon is weakened, and we no longer need her." He waved his hand dismissively. "We don't need the boy any more, either."


	57. 55: Night Vision

**The Quiet Life**

Chapter 55: Night Vision

 _In which the past stalks the night, and the present stands guard._

The nightmares had returned.

The first one had come after a day of quiet happiness: They'd played a guessing game, and had walked out to see the frozen river where it passed under the bridge. He had cooked for them, making his own version of her mother's mushroom stew. They'd made tender love early in the evening, fallen asleep, and then woke a few hours later, reaching for each other and barely finishing before falling back to sleep, their bodies wrapped in a lover's knot. Then she was awakened out of a dreamless sleep by a confusion of sound and movement. Disoriented, she raised herself on her elbow and shook her head, foggy with sleep. He was mumbling, his limbs moving in small, jerky spasms. She'd seen enough night panic in her brother to recognize the signs, so she put a calming palm on his heaving chest. The skin was clammy under her fingers. But he did not react as her brother had. At her touch, his eyes flew open and he sprang up to a tense sit. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes darted from side to side, his head swiveling wildly. He was not awake, and she remembered the other time when she'd waked him from a deep sleep. She would be careful this time.

"Anata, wake up." She wasn't getting through. "Kenshin. Kenshin, wake up. You are dreaming." She moved to her knees and tried to put a restraining arm around his shoulders. He shook her off and scrambled to all fours, his fingers scrabbling against the tatami around him. He was muttering, but she couldn't make out any words. As he became more and more agitated, his words were clearer: "No! Where? Come back— Don't—" He clambered unsteadily to his feet and began to search the cabin, feeling along the walls. "Stop! You'll—" She feared he would find the door and go outside, and then how would she get him back inside? How could she keep him safe?

She could see he was in a panic, and she had no idea how to deal with a panicked assassin. She knew she would be unable to restrain him, and she tried to think of some way to reach inside his dream and calm him. Then it came to her. He no longer slept with his sword by his side, but she knew right where he kept it. On her knees she swept over the short distance to the dark corner where he used to sleep sitting up. The cabin, closed against the cold, admitted only a little of the full moon's light, and in the dark, her frantic, searching hands at first fell on uselessness: his folded hakama, his sandals. She heard him behind her, tripping over his own feet and stumbling down into the cold firepit. She had to hurry. Then the back of her hand knocked against something, and the scabbard fell hard against her shoulder. She grabbed it like a lifeline and stood to run to him.

But when she turned, he was on her. He grasped her upper arm with a grip that hurt, and pulled her roughly toward him. He gasped each breath as though it were his last, and the terror in his unseeing eyes made her blood run cold. She grabbed the hand not holding her arm and shoved the sword into it. At first, it seemed as though he weren't going to take it, that it wouldn't help, but as she used both her hands to wrap his fingers around the sheath, he froze. She could almost feel the connection forming between them, his hand recognizing the familiar wood, the very shape and grain of it, and the scabbard warming where his skin touched it. He released her arm and swayed backward, missing his footing a little. She feared he would fall, and this time it was her hand that grasped his arm, and she led him back to their bed.

Already the nightmare had loosened its grip on him, and she was able to nudge him back down onto the still-warm cushion. She sat beside him and pulled the quilt over him, cradling his head on her lap until he was asleep again, then slid his sword from his sleeping hands and laid it on the tatami across the head of their bed. Through a crack in the door, she could see the gray lifting of night's blanket. Dawn was on its way. She would sit up until he woke, just to watch over him.

He slept deep and long until day was fully bloomed. She rose when it was light enough, dressed, and put his sword back in its corner. Then she made fresh, hot tea. Hot tea over cold, leftover rice was a particular favorite of his. She opened the door to let in the sun, and he began to stir. He sat up, yawned and stretched extravagantly, and looked around for her.

"Good morning." He smiled at her, and then looked out the door at the sky over the lake. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." She poured steaming tea into a bowl of half-dried rice and brought it to him. She sank to her knees next to him, sliding close to his side behind his arm. He adjusted himself so that their sides touched all along their lengths. It was still a surprise to her, each and every time, how warm his body always was. "Did you sleep well?" She was prepared to help him over the aftereffects of his disturbed sleep, but today would be the beginning of her understanding that now only his nights were cursed; hereafter, his days would be free of his past.

"Yes, I did. I feel…" He brought his bowl to his mouth and breathed down into the steaming tea and rice, billowing steam out beside his face. When he looked up, his eyes were clear and bright. "I feel rested. What would you like to do today?"

Over the next weeks, every few nights, there were more nightmares. She got used to being awakened, then calming him, keeping him safe, and helping him back to sleep. She stopped asking him the next morning how he felt—his following sleep was always deep, and he woke with not the slightest recall of the nights' events. One after another, the episodes weakened, and their frequency slowed. She wondered what had triggered them, but even more she noticed the difference in him after they finally stopped. His eyes were gentle, his mouth soft, his step easy and relaxed. Sometimes she was sure she heard him humming under his breath as he stamped in out of the snow with an armful of firewood or as he prepared their evening tea. The undercurrent of tension that she had always detected in his hands was gone, and when they held her, or stroked her back as they lay together, they felt comforting and peaceful.


	58. 56: Reunion

**The Quiet Life**

Chapter 56: Reunion

 _In which Enishi comes a'callin'._

Tomorrow they would finish cleaning the house in preparation for the new year, even though they had started a few days late. It had been a top-to-bottom affair, and no corner or crevice had been spared its scrubbing or sweeping. She had not yet created their twin arrangements of pine, bamboo, and plum tree sprigs, but she had gathered the materials. Soon she would finish them, and she smiled as she envisioned them sitting on either side of their door. Surely her mother would be proud of her, for how she'd turned this shack into a real home. This morning he was in town, purchasing more new cloths for cleaning the porch, and she was stitching new tape around a tatami mat. In spite of the bitter cold, she had the door open a crack, just so she could hear the winter's silence. If she listened closely, she could just hear the muted whisper as the river rushed unseen under the ice. She scooted closer to the fire as she worked, and pulled the quilt closer around her shoulders. The quiet and the warmth and the mindlessness of the task made her drowse, and more than once she jerked awake as she bent lower over her work.

Her head snapped up and she listened, holding very still. Silence. She must have imagined the noise, and so went back to her needle. But then it came again, this time closer. "Siiiisster!" She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the door, shoving it open just enough to look around outside. The puff of cold air raised chill bumps up her legs. A small figure was making its way across the bridge. Her heart leaped when she recognized him, and she nearly stumbled off the porch in her haste to meet him on the path. He, too, ran when he saw her, and they slammed together in a bear hug.

"Enishi!" She lifted him off his feet, and spun him around. How he had grown! "Oh, Enishi, Enishi!" She laughed out loud, alternately crushing him to her and holding him away to look at his face. She kissed him hard, full on the mouth, and laughed again at the shock on his face—she'd not kissed him like that since he'd been a tiny child.

"But how are you here? And why? Come inside, you must be freezing." She chattered non-stop as she pulled him inside and pushed him down close to the fire. "Here, put your feet down in this corner of the firepit. Wait—you still have your shoes on!" She laughed again as she took off his shoes and nestled his feet in the warmest part of the fire sand. "Your poor feet!" He kept opening his mouth to speak, but couldn't get started.

"The water is not yet cold," she said, as she swung the water pot back over the flame. "So tea will be ready in no time." She spooned rice from their breakfast pot into a bowl and shoved it at him. "Oh! You don't have chopsticks." She rummaged around in the wooden box where she kept them. She stopped and looked over at him, her face beaming. There were no words to express how happy she was to see him again. She'd missed him terribly, and this elation nearly overpowered her.

The water began to burble, and she grabbed the tea box and a large bowl. She made tea, and handed him the bowl, then sat next to him and put her arm around his shoulders, squeezing him close to her. She sighed and, closing her eyes happily, leaned her head over on his.

"Now, tell me, my dearest brother, how you managed to find me here." In her excitement, she'd failed to notice his solemn demeanor, but the long pause in answer to her question brought her up short. She sat back away from him and looked at, really studied, his face. "Is something wrong?"

Enishi's face was dark, and he didn't meet her eyes. "Some friends helped me find you."

 _Some "friends"?_ She didn't like the sound of that, because she'd not contacted any of their friends or family since she'd left home. "But—"

He rounded on her fiercely. "I've come to take you home, Sister!"

It was her turn to look shocked. Her eyes flew open, and her jaw dropped. "No, Eni-bo, you don't under—"

He grabbed her lapels and shook her. "Sister! Father is not well— He needs you. I need you!" He was shouting by now. "Sister! Come home to us!"

She was shocked by his ferocity, but moved by it, as well. Tears sprang to her eyes. She whispered, her voice hoarse, "Eni-bo, please—"

His eyes were red now, too, and he dropped his forehead against her where he gripped her kimono. He sobbed, "What are you doing here? Living with a murderer!"

"Eni—"

"Tadaima."

Neither one of them had heard so much as a footfall on the boards, and she sprang away from her brother guiltily.

"Oh!" was all she could manage at first. "Oh!" She looked back and forth between them, flustered, but finally managed, "Kenshin! Ah. Kenshin-san, this— This is my brother, Enishi." She corrected herself quickly. "My brother, Yukishiro Enishi-san."

Kenshin turned to lean his sword against the wall just inside the door, and then faced the boy. He bowed politely. "Yukishiro-san."

Her heart fluttered at the respect he'd just paid to her young brother—even in this awkward situation—and, by extension, to her. "Eni-chan, this is—" She made a quick decision, and straightened formally. She began again. "Enishi-san, please greet my husband, Himura Kenshin-san."

Enishi rose and stood stiffly for a moment. He performed a correct, but exceedingly shallow, bow. Through clenched teeth, he just managed a curt growl. "Himura. San."

She was appalled at his rudeness, and hurried to cover the moment. "Husband, please sit. The water is hot, and you must be thirsty." She began to busy herself with the tea.

"No." He spoke shortly, and her stomach clenched a little, but he was not displeased. "Not yet. We have a guest, and will need more water for tea. Would you like me to bring in some yams from storage?"

"Yes, thank you." She was still surprised, sometimes, by his grace in difficult circumstances. "Three, and a head of cabbage, please."

When Kenshin was safely out in the shed where they stored their root vegetables, she let out the breath she'd been holding, and wheeled on Enishi. "Eni-chan!" she hissed. "That was very rude!"

"I don't care! I don't care about him, and I don't understand why you are acting like you do! 'Husband'? What can you be thinking?" He was actually pouting, and her heart twinged for the child he looked like now, the child she had loved so. "Come away with me. Come now! What are you waiting for? My friends will help us—"

"Enishi!" The sharpness in her voice stopped him, and he looked up at her as he used to when she'd caught him in some naughtiness while they were still a family. She came over to him and knelt in front of him. She took his head in her hands and pulled their foreheads together. "Listen to me. Listen carefully." She closed her eyes in a little prayer that he would listen for once, this time, this of all times. "Coming here has put you in danger. You must leave and return to Father. You must take care of him for me until I return." She tried not to think about when that might be.

"No, no—" the boy began as he struggled to pull away, but she held him tight to her, and she could feel hot tears against her shoulder.

"The people who have helped you are dangerous to you. And to Father." She thought, "And to me," because she suspected who it was who had been 'taking care' of him, and fear ran cold along her bones. _If only he will hear me._ "Please, please, go home!" His struggling had stopped, and he was still as stone. "Do not return the way you came, but find a way home that avoids them." She raised his face to hers and kissed his wet cheeks. "Stay to eat with us, and then get home as fast as you can."

He said nothing, but she wanted him to say it, so she pushed for agreement. "Do you hear me?"

Subdued now, he said, "I hear you, sister."

"Will you go? Will you help Father wait for me?"

He sighed in resignation. "I will go back." Then he grabbed onto her shoulders and pulled her close again. His voice was strained and tears still stood in his eyes. "But… but when are you coming home?"

She held him tightly to her and rocked him a little. "Shhh-shhh. Don't worry. I will come as soon as I can." That part was true. "Thank you for obeying me."

They ate as soon as the food was ready so her brother might start out while it was still light. Few words were spoken over the meal, but as she outfitted him with Kenshin's gray quilted jacket—he never wore it—for warmth and a bundle containing rice balls, yam slices, and dried fish, she spoke to him under her breath. "Remember what I said. Go straight home. Will you do that for me?" He nodded. She reached inside her sleeve for the bundle of coins that she'd wrapped up earlier. "Give this to Father, and tell him I will return when I can. Tell him I am well. Tell him to keep his spirits up." They stood on the porch in the fading light, and she held him by his shoulders and looked into his eyes. "Yukishiro Eni-bo." She smiled at her baby brother. "Wait for me at home." He ducked his head and swallowed hard, then flung his arms around her middle. "Sister!" Then he turned away and jumped down to the ground.

She watched as her brother ran down the path toward the bridge. Two warm arms crept around her waist from behind, and she clasped his joined hands over her belly. In her ear: "He is not staying?" She sighed again—this had been a day of sighs—and replied simply, "I have sent him home." They stood together like that for some time, then Kenshin took one of her hands and turned her, and led her back inside their home. They lit the evening candles and closed the big door, and the cabin glowed yellow in the growing dusk, a little jewel set in the sleeping forest.

A figure all in black emerged from behind the tree that had been left for shade in the summer. Instead of following the boy along the path to town, it struck out through the trees, heading up the mountainside.


	59. 57: Hustling and Bustling

**The Quiet Life**

Chapter 57: Hustling and Bustling

 _Bitch better have my money._

"What do you want now, Iizuka?"

They were meeting in the abandoned shrine in the part of the forest believed by the townspeople to be bewitched. Iizuka didn't hold with that nonsense, but he did know that his fingers and nose were freezing, and his insides were trembling so hard that his back muscles had seized up. The sooner he could be away, the better.

"My lord, please forgive me for bringing this up—" Tatsumi thought he could imagine what was coming, and he doubted the sincerity of this apology. "—but there have been unforeseen expenses, and I was wondering—"

In fact, the General had already prepared Iizuka's allowance—he'd made it generous since he wanted to make sure this was the last time he'd have to suffer the man's presence—but it had been a tedious day, and it might be amusing to watch this dog sweat. " 'Unforeseen expenses'? What expenses are you talking about? Have we not paid you well enough?"

Iizuka visibly blanched, and swallowed hard. "Well, Tatsumi-dono, I did have to eat and lodge in town when I met with Yukishiro." He warmed to his message. "And that boy eats like two men! I did not realize his upkeep would come out of my pocket. When I brought him to you—"

"Yes, yes." Tatsumi waved dismissal at the supplicant. The whining baby sweated too easily—he was not even good amusement. He was very glad indeed to see the back of him. "See the paymaster. He already has orders."

"Thank you, my general!" Iizuka was scraping his way backward out of the room. "You can be assured—"

"Out!"

* * *

Iizuka finally found Katsura's hideout in Tsuruga. It was a typical port-side inn, cheap and cramped. It was small enough that the tiny entourage accompanying the Commander took up the entire top floor, and even with that they slept and worked cheek by jowl. Katsura looked bad, haggard and worried, and Iizuka could tell that things were not going well for the "men of high purpose."

 _I have chosen my sides well, I think._

Still, Katsura's manner was as smooth and polite as ever, and he greeted his former inspector, now spy, with considerably more respect than the General ever had. "I hope your journey was pleasant."

"Oh, thank you, my Commander." He would not miss this opportunity. "In fact, that is something I'd like to discuss with you." He shifted his seat, and continued, in the manner of two old friends. "The distance between here and the City is long. This time of year, the Inland Sea is cold and stormy, and captains charge double for passage." Iizuka sat back, pleased with his sad story.

Katsura was silent for a moment, then asked, "And Himura and Yukishiro? What of them?"

Iizuka was less pleased with this turn of conversation. Of course, this was the whole reason Katsura had kept him on, but at the moment, Iizuka was more concerned with his payment. He suspected that his usefulness was coming to an end—this might actually be his last report—and he intended to squeeze as much as he could from the Shishi while he could.

"They are well." He would have said this regardless. So long as Katsura could rely only on Iizuka's word, he could say anything he liked. And they were, weren't they? "They are growing their own vegetables, so they are eating well. No one in the town seems concerned with them."

"That's good to hear." The relief showed on Katsura's face, and it inflamed Iizuka's long-standing jealousy. Katsura wrote a short note and handed it to Iizuka, then stood to go. "Please give this to the paymaster as you leave. It authorizes him to reimburse you for your passage in addition to your usual pay."

"Thank you, my Commander." Iizuka bowed low to Katsura's back.

Upon his life, Iizuka couldn't understand why Himura was so favored. The boy was aloof, and wouldn't practice with the rest of the men, and pretended—to Iizuka, this was his worst sin—that he didn't notice he was the favorite. Iizuka judged his own sword skills as better than average, and he secretly imagined that he could best Himura in a match. Too, he'd resented having to clean up after him, even though that was his job. He wished that he'd had the chance to show Katsura what he could do with his own blade.

No matter, now. The creature probably wouldn't be allowed to survive the winter. And, if that happened, then Yukishiro… He hoped she would be a different story.

* * *

The moon was new, the sky black, and the air so dry that the stars weren't even twinkling. It was freezing. In row house upon row house, single men, rootless, masterless, drifting through life, slept quietly, or fitfully, as their circumstances dictated. The icy cold of mid-winter had driven them indoors and quieted the City's streets. Pleasure houses did a brisk business, but only for those who could afford to celebrate night after night.

Iizuka could not afford to party like that anymore.

His room was cold this night, and he drew his quilt closer around him. He reached out and pulled a stick from the dwindling pile, and shoved it into the opening of his iron stove. That was the only good thing about his three-mat room. Such a tiny space didn't take much fuel to heat. Too, it was not at the end of the row, so he benefited from the heat of his neighbors' rooms. He pined for his cozy quarters at the Kohagi-ya, even the crowding and the smell and the constant noise, and his stomach rumbled at the thought of the regular meals. Most of all, he missed the stability. Yes, it had been war-time, and one couldn't expect that happy circumstance to continue forever, but while it lasted, it had been an agreeable existence.

Now, however, he suspected that the hand dealt him had begun to play out. He knew that even now Katsura planned his return to Kyoto, but he'd also heard that the new structure of the revolution's struggle would be very different: no more shadow assassins—so, no more call for inspectors—but open, ceaseless violence, brutal and unrelenting, a game played wide-open to the bloody end. Very uncomfortable. Not his cup of tea.

And just thinking about what Tatsumi's plans for him might be gave him the chills. He would try very hard never to cross paths with that monster again.

No, he must make his own future with his own wits. He reached down into his obi and caught hold of the string tied there, and tugged at it until he'd freed his purse. Careful to avoid any telltale clinking—these walls were paper-thin, and he didn't trust his neighbors' sense of fair play—he spread his coins out before him on the ragged tatami. Again, he counted his kitty, and calculated how far it would take him. Not an unsubstantial sum, but he wanted to get very far away from what was coming. It would be harsh and unforgiving, and he'd rather run than die.

He poured another cup of saké. No longer warm, it was the very last drop of his very last flask. His mood was souring fast. He thought about them all: Katsura and his anointed followers. Tatsumi and his crazy ninjas. The despised shadow assassin, whom he'd had to trail like a dog, cleaning up after. That interfering, cold bitch, Yukishiro. He soundly cursed every single soul among them for ruining his life.

Well, no matter. He knew how to make parasols, and he knew that a ship always put out for Kyushu not long after the winter solstice. He could wait that long to put this accursed war behind him. He would lie low until then, and then book passage under a different name.

Surely his luck would change with the new year.


	60. 58: By My Side

**Escape**

Chapter 58: By My Side

 _Let's blow this joint._

Enishi's visit had broken the spell, and now he knew, with certainty, that they could never be free if they stayed near the City. Someone would find him. Someone would always find him. Too many believed they could murder their way into power.

This had all been percolating at the back of his mind as the snows fell and the sky lowered, as they ate and slept together with only each other's company for days on end, and now he knew his decision. He would not return to Katsura, nor would he pick up his sword again. In fact, he wanted nothing more to do with the revolution. He no longer cared who wielded power. He no longer saw even Katsura as "good"—power destroyed people and turned them into demons, and Katsura was perhaps only a bit better than the others.

So it was decided. He would leave behind his own demon, that monster sleeping inside his head. He would abandon his second master, too, and leave his sword, and turn from the path he'd set himself on. He would create a new life, small, and quiet. He'd thought about becoming a monk; he'd thought about going before the mast. But none of these occupations accommodated the one thing that he needed for his true new beginning: his wife.

Today, he would ask her. If she agreed, one day to pack and bring in supplies for the trip, and then they could be on their way by the day after tomorrow. He felt the need to hurry.

He watched her as she moved around the room, clearing away their breakfast dishes, folding and stacking the futon, tending to the fire. He could watch her all day. Yes, he would ask her today. Soon.

She was still rearranging the coals when she paused, leaving the stick buried in the white ash. She blew out a little sigh and looked him full in the face. The suddenness of her gaze took him aback. "Husband." She sat back in a squat. "You have been watching me. Have I grown a tail?" A tiny smile took the sting out of her words.

He felt heat rise in his cheeks. He hadn't realized he'd been so obvious. He, too, smiled, a little shamefacedly, and scratched the back of his head. "Ah! No. I mean… Yes." His words were getting tangled up again. "I mean, no, you haven't grown a tail—" She laughed, and the sound of it made his heart leap. "—but, yes, I have been… staring. Gomen!" She rose, and came over to sit behind him, putting her smooth warm hands on his neck and shoulders, and began to massage his muscles, always a little tight there. He could feel her soothing touch work its magic, and he often found it easier to say difficult things if they were not facing each other. But this was not difficult in that way, so he reached a hand up to take one of hers, and swiveled until they were face to face.

"Do you remember when you spoke to me about… about the life I've chosen?" She nodded, very still. "Since that day, I have been thinking." He looked down at her hand resting in his, and opened it out along his palm. With his other hand, he stroked along her palm, noticing the faded traces of rough places and tiny scars from their summer's work. "And what I think is this." He drew a breath. "You were right. You were right about all of it. That life was killing me." He paused. He wanted to say this right. "It made me a demon. And I have decided I do not want to be a demon." Here came the hardest part: "I want to live." He let out the rest of his breath. There, he'd said it.

She laid her free hand over his, and pulled them to her heart, but said nothing. He was grateful for that, because he had more to say.

"The problem is that I do not think I can live here. Near the City. I must go away." He felt her grip tighten and heard her sharp intake of breath. Still without looking at her face, he reached out and pulled her close to his side. "On the northern island, they do not think much about who rules the country. I think that I could live there, find a small place there and raise my food, as we have here, and survive." She had been tensing up all during this speech, and he wanted to get it all out before she responded. "There is just one more problem. I would also like to be happy, and I think… no, I am sure… that I cannot do that—" _Without you._ "—alone."

He'd planned several arguments to lay before her, to convince her to come with him, but in the moment, he could see that they were irrelevant. He could not even promise to keep her from harm. Either she would come with him, or she would not.

He waited for her. He was prepared for a long silence, perhaps one that lasted days. But he was wrong.

She seemed frozen for a second or two, and then gripped his hand such that it hurt a little. "Oh, my husband—! Will you be all alone, with no one to take care of you?"

Now he knew he could ask his question, say the words that had been running through his head like a drumbeat. "Will you come with me into a new life?"

* * *

She was busy with the last details of her preparations for the new year. The turn of the year was two days away, so this was the last good luck day for setting out the arrangements of bamboo and pine leaves. Two bowls of salt already sat on either side of the doorway, and the tiny arrangements would soon follow. She wished they could have been bigger. But all day she'd felt him eyeing her surreptitiously, sidelong glances that snapped turned away if she noticed. _Something is going on in his head today!_

She would make him wait a little before she asked him, just because she loved him. She found his reticence, which used to drive her to distraction, now irresistibly charming, and she did not always rescue him quite as soon as she might. For his part, he seemed to take her teasing him as a sign of affection. Which it was. She liked that he had understood that tacitly.

But enough was enough, and the coals were fine now anyway. "My husband, do you have something to tell me? Or do I perhaps have horns growing out of my head today?"

He blushed, and stammered, and she decided to show him mercy by letting him talk to her without looking at her. He could be such a boy. Her hands were warm from their late proximity to the firepit, and she felt his shoulders melt beneath her touch. But this time he turned to face her, and took one of her hands in his, playing with her fingers and stroking her skin as though it were a part of her body that was new to him. Which it was not. She liked that he did that.

But what was he saying? Suddenly she was listening intently. He was talking about his life, the old one, the one that she wished she could erase. Why did she feel uneasy at this? She held his hands tight to her chest. He moved to embrace her, and kept talking, but her mind would not make sense of it. Surely he couldn't be saying—

No, she'd heard him right. He intended to leave! Her breathing shallowed, and her head swam. Who cared about the north country, and what they did or did not do there? So what if he could garden there? What would she do, what would she be, without him? Where could she go if he abandoned her? She had not even told him yet, and she didn't know how he would respond when she did.

She realized he'd stopped talking, and was looking at her in that way he had when he was simply waiting for her to respond. She knew he would wait like that until she spoke; he never hurried her. What was it? He'd asked her something. He'd said that he wanted to live, and that he wanted to be happy, and then he'd asked her something. Oh!

Her swimming head turned to fireworks and her thudding heart nearly choked her. She spoke with all the self-control she could muster. "I will go with you. Anywhere." Then she looked at him directly, and smiled. "You need someone to take care of you."


	61. 59: Dream Things True

**Escape**

Chapter 59: Dream Things True

 _In which their moorings begin to loosen._

They talked deep into the night, and, for once, his words flowed easily. She listened, rapt, as he told her of the northern island he'd learned about from Ushiro Ryu, who had grown up there, and had been his only friend at headquarters. He drew a map in the ashes to show her their route. They would take a boat up Lake Biwa to Nishi-azai, the town nestled in the lake's northernmost reach. From there, two days westward on a cart over the mountains to the port of Tsuruga on Japan's western coast, and then another ship through the Sea of Japan to Setana, on the western shore of Hokkaido's southern peninsula. According to Ushiro, his hometown was on a wide river delta with rich soil, and isolated enough that the inhabitants were barely aware of the revolution. In fact, he told her, the entire western coast of Hokkaido was sparsely settled, almost desolate—harsh winters and mountainous, but he was certain that the two of them would be happy there. They would be safe.

Tomorrow, she was to go to the market and purchase—he wrote out the list as he talked—the items they would need as they started out. They would be traveling light, so the list was short. He would stay at the cabin and pack into the now nearly-empty medicine chest the few possessions they would take. Yes, it was deep winter, an unfortunate time to travel, and their path would be through snow country and over heavy seas, but he knew they could do it. He believed in her; he believed in them. She fretted to him a bit about money, and he showed her the cloth-covered package in the bottom corner of the medicine chest. She was astonished at their wealth. They would be able to buy passage on boats and carts, and lodgings and meals, and, if they traveled fast, they would arrive at their destination in only six or seven days and still have funds to live on—after all, she knew how to stretch a coin—while they set themselves up.

She tried to keep it all straight in her mind, tried to make her own, personal plans. This time, she would leave behind nothing that mattered to her, not her diary, not the mirror he'd bought her, not her mother's kaiken. And she couldn't bear to leave her irises, not completely. They had shown such a lovely color and under her nurturing had grown vigorously, in spite of that vendor's warnings. Surely there would be room for a couple of rhizomes. The few she'd planted in spring had divided nicely when she'd dug them up and, once they had dried, she had put into the shed a nice, fat sack.

As she readied herself for sleep, however, she grew pensive. She knew this would mean that she had already seen the last of her tiny family. Her husband could never return. Neither could she. She would be cut off from all contact, from everyone she had ever known, for the rest of her life, cast out into a world empty of foe, yes, but also of friend and family. A little bubble of panic began to rise, and suddenly she didn't even like being alone behind her screen. She had not yet combed her hair, but she quickly tied her obi and stepped out into the room.

"Husband…"

He looked up at her from polishing his sword, and his own face turned serious at her obvious agitation. "What is it? What is troubling you?" He set down his work and patted the floor beside him. "Come. Tell me."

She wrung her hands in front of her, and then hurried over to sit beside him. As she sat, he put his arm around her and said, "Please do not fear. We will face everything together." His reassurances broke the pressure of the bubble in her chest, and her eyes grew hot and red.

She tried to steady her breathing, and she couldn't look at him. "I will never see my family again, will I?" She felt his fingers tighten on her shoulder. "We will be all on our own. No friends at all. Not even anyone we've ever met before. My brother…" Her trembling breath stopped her, and she gasped in what was not quite a sob.

He was quiet and still for a few moments, then he put a hand along her cheek and lifted her downcast face until their eyes met. "I have no one to leave behind, so I cannot imagine what this is like for you. I have wondered whether I was wrong to ask you to come with me. Thoughtless, even selfish. I cannot hold out hope for a life of ease, nor even an untroubled one." She reached up and covered his hand with hers. She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger on her lips. "No, wait a moment. Please hear me." He re-arranged himself until he was sitting tailor-fashion, and pulled her into his lap, their habit now for their most serious of talks.

"I said I've wondered whether I should have asked you to come with me. But now I've changed my mind about that. We are family to each other. For me, more truly family than I've known. Certainly more than anyone else is now. Or will be in the future." She leaned back against his chest, her heart calming under the truth of what he was saying. "Our life together will be good. We will make it so." He leaned his cheek against hers and said, "We will be our own guiding stars."

Their time in their first home was growing short, and the thrill of what lay before them, the excitement and even the dread of it, energized their love-making. Finally, she left him sleeping, spent, on the futon and returned to her corner to comb and tie her hair. His words still burned in her ears, and she wondered whether she would ever be able to breathe normally again. But she was ready, now, for everything. To abandon any idea of returning to the home of her childhood, to leave her family. Even Enishi. Enishi would grow up, and have his own life, and make his own choices. She would be, probably was even now, no longer responsible for him. She felt him move out of the center of her heart, and was glad. Enishi would be… Enishi.

Her world was no longer, would never be again, anything that she had imagined or experienced before. A new vista opened before her, limitless, unknown and unpredictable. There was just one bit of old business that she needed to take care of. She opened her diary, tore out a blank page from the back, and began to write.


	62. 60: Bargaining Chips

**Escape**

Chapter 60: Bargaining Chips

 _In which Tomoe writes a letter._

She blotted and folded the paper, and then tucked it into the folds of her kimono where it lay next to her. What she had written seemed to ring in her ears:

 _Please meet with me tomorrow morning. I want to negotiate with you. I can give you what you really want._

 _We are going far away. Himura will never be a problem for you again. If you will let us go, I can tell you where Katsura has hidden Ikumatsu. Katsura is devoted to her, and he will do anything to protect or rescue her. If he thinks she is in danger, he will take unwise risks. I am sure you will be able to capture him easily. Katsura is the one you want. He is the one responsible for your comrades' deaths. Himura has killed only on Katsura's command, and now Himura has sheathed his sword. He has abandoned his position as Katsura's assassin._

 _I will come to the shrine at tomorrow's dawn. Himura and I sail on the noon ship._

She would atone to them somehow for this betrayal, but she counted on Katsura to be able to nullify its effects. She also counted on Ikumatsu to help Katsura to understand.


	63. 61: New Year's Eve

**Escape**

Chapter 61: New Year's Eve

 _In which preparations are completed._

"Will you be able to carry all this back up the hill by yourself?" He was re-checking the list before he handed it over. "I could come with you. The ship we want doesn't leave until tomorrow noon."

"No, I can do it." She took his hand and squeezed it. "Please come, though, if you like."

He considered that. He calculated the time required to pack, he evaluated the weather, he measured what he wanted to do to get the cabin ready to be closed up and abandoned. He was in high spirits. Now that his plan was in motion, he didn't want to waste any time. And there was something in the air. He felt like something was breathing down his neck.

"I had better stay here. I want to turn under the garden, and polish the hoe and axe once more." He still held her hand. "Thank you."

"Thank—?"

"For coming with me." He pulled her closer, and slipped his arms into the sleeves of her yukata and laid his palms over the curve of her creamy back. He never tired of that feeling, like a warm bath. He held her tightly, and for a long time. He whispered into her ear. "For saving me."

She returned his embrace, and he buried his face in her neck, felt her breath misting through his hair, felt, more than heard, her response. "Anata."

She dressed while he made her a final cup of tea. He brought it to her in her private space, and she let him comb and tie her hair. One more embrace, then he watched her make her way down the path. Between the denuded trees, he could see her much further than usual. This time tomorrow, they'd be out on the lake, well on their way. His dreams were becoming reality.

* * *

Now they were packed, or almost. She would put the irises in the box in the morning, just before they left to go down to the docks. In spite of that, the cabin didn't feel empty. They were taking only their clothes and a few, a very few, personal possessions. The box was not large, and he planned to leave everything that had greeted them when they'd arrived in the spring. He considered that it all belonged to Katsura, and she didn't care about any of it. She wanted a clean break with their past. She was not even going to write Father, not until they were well and truly gone.

She was awake after he was, this night that would dawn onto their future. Her mind buzzed, her belly fluttered. She had yet to tell him of her secret, and she wasn't sure when the right time would be. Before they left? During their journey? Today, and get it over with? Holding it to herself alone was delicious, and it warmed her whenever she thought of it, but she longed to share it with him.

He had been so different today. He never lacked for confidence, and she recalled marveling, as she had followed him to kata, at how it had come over him as they left the cabin and threaded their way through the forest. She had seen it, seen how the set of his shoulders, the carriage of his head, even his walk, had settled into a unity even more pronounced than usual. No, certainty was his way. But that was in activities that he had performed thousands of times, familiar paths worn smooth by his own feet.

Today, however, he was casting them out into a wild unknown. He had only heard tales of their destination, second-hand words. It was known to him no more than it was to her. He was proposing for them broken travels over ferocious waters and across rugged terrain, depending on strangers, and with no idea of what they would encounter, either along the way or at the end. Yet he was neither anxious nor tense. Rather, he spoke and moved and decided with a serene resolve, clearly untroubled by the prospects of obstructions or barriers. Something in her mind tumbled, and she realized she had ceased to think of him as anything like a boy. He was a man to her.

She turned toward him and laid her arm across his chest. In his sleep, he stirred and moved a hand to cover hers. It was warm, as his hands always were, and she felt happiness wash over her. She couldn't think of a single thing more that she wanted. She closed her eyes and tucked her head a little closer to his shoulder. She'd found Iizuka in the marketplace—he seemed to always be there these days—so the letter was on its way. She wished she had been able to think of some other way to contact Tatsumi, but there was no other choice on such short notice. _Go to sleep, Yukishiro—you have an early morning._

Their lives had spun so quickly that she had trouble taking it in. The brightness of their future blinded her. Now she believed it. They were going to make a new life. Against all the odds, they were going to be free.


	64. 62: Happy New Year!

**Diminishing Returns**

Chapter 62: Happy New Year!

 _In which Tomoe takes an early morning walk._

Mist rolls up the mountain in waves, pausing when it reaches the bluff. It swirls around the cabin and thickens over the garden. The moon is shrouded behind a high, thin layer of ice clouds moving very fast.

She still can't sleep. It's just as well. The trek up to the shrine will be long and hard, and she wants to return before he wakes. She is careful when she rises, but he is deeply asleep. He does that now. Noiselessly, she dresses in the dark. The appointment is important, and she reaches for her perfume pot, but stops. The unaccustomed aroma may wake him. And the General is unlikely to be moved by it anyway.

With the utmost care, she slides the door open just enough to squeeze through, out into the chill, dark morning. She pauses outside the door and looks back at her sleeping husband. She will hurry.


	65. 63: The Turn of the Knife

**Diminishing Returns**

Chapter 63: The Turn of the Knife

 _In which Iizuka plots a General's Game._

Winter had reached the stage where the sky, between snowstorms, was gloriously clear, and the air so cold that snow remained loose and powdery. It squeaked underfoot, and made for slow going. Sounds carried far in the brittle air, and the stars twinkled with such sharp brilliance that they almost crackled. The moon, now in its most pregnant phase, was huge and close, and cast shadows sharp as noonday.

Iizuka had not slept well either. He had finally given up trying, especially after he'd decided what to do with the information in her letter. He'd delivered it after reading it—it had not even occurred to him not to read it—but the exchange had not gone well.

Tatsumi had received him while still soaking in the shrine's hot spring. The midday sun blazed in a cloudless sky, and between the steam and the smoke from Tatsumi's pipe and the sun's glare, Iizuka could barely see the man. He stepped carefully over the slippery stones surrounding the spring, knelt gingerly at a respectful distance, and waited. Tatsumi ignored his spy so thoroughly that Iizuka began to wonder if he knew he was there. Once Tatsumi had finished his pipe, he beckoned Iizuka to approach. Iizuka shuffled closer and, bowing, stretched out his palms to present the little scroll. The knees of his hakama were now soaking wet. Tatsumi plucked up the scroll and read it lazily, yawning openly throughout.

Barely able to contain his excitement, Izuka spoke far too boldly. "This is a great opportunity, isn't it?"

Tatsumi dropped the scroll on the stones and Iizuka watched it sag as it sucked up a pool of water. "What, in your mind, is this great opportunity?"

Something in the General's tone warned Iizuka to watch his step. He ducked his head subserviently. "I apologize, my general. I only thought that this means we can bring down Katsura at the same time we get rid of that pest."

Tatsumi was silent so long that Iizuka was afraid he had fallen asleep in the water. The little toe on his right foot was numb, and he shifted his position as unobtrusively as he could. He wondered whether he dared cough to remind his master that he was still there. Suddenly the man drew a deep breath and surged up out of the water, reaching to a little nearby table for his yukata. Iizuka flinched and sat up very straight, eager to hear the plan and, of course, his place in it.

"No." Tatsumi's voice was flat and final. He stepped up out of the water and stood over Iizuka, steaming and dripping.

"No?" He couldn't make sense of this word, and, mystified, he dared to question it. "What are we going to do?"

Tatsumi had already turned to make his way back into the shrine's rooms, but stopped abruptly and half turned back toward his spy. Iizuka, now appalled at what he had done, shrank back into himself and braced for a blow. What followed was more devastating than violence.

"I—" Iizuka did not miss Tatsumi's singular pronoun, and the exclusion cut him to the quick. Tatsumi continued, "I am going to do nothing to prevent the murderer's flight. When I learn of the geisha's location, I will move against Katsura in my own time. And when I have Katsura, I will have all his men, including that infernal assassin." He stepped up onto the outer porch, but as he slid back the door to his room, he added, just as though he knew Iizuka's obsession with Tomoe, "And I don't care what happens to the girl."

Iizuka spent the rest of the day back in town at his usual haunt, drinking and trying to warm up inside his damp pants. As the afternoon wore on his bitter mood soured even more. He seethed both at being excluded from Tatsumi's plans and at not being able to personally make Himura suffer for his sins. Once he was drunk enough, he finally rebelled: if Tatsumi wasn't going to act, he, Iizuka, would take care of things. He, Iizuka, would foil Himura's escape, with or without Tatsumi's support.

He reeled up from his table and stood, wobbling, as he fished out coins from his purse and dribbled them onto the table. Picking up his sake cup and throwing his head back, he drained the last drop, nearly falling backwards. He scrabbled at the edge of the table. Once upright again, he weaved what he imagined was a dignified exit from the tavern.

Once back in his closet of a room, he mulled over what he knew about the players. The ninjas were living in the shrine's housing, and they used the surrounding forest as their training grounds. They trained every day. They did nothing but train. They were like, well, trained crickets.

He was certain that Yukishiro would set out up the mountain as early as she could. After all, although he didn't know where they were going, he knew that they planned to catch a noon ship. Just like Himura to try to give everyone the slip.

And of course she would be alone. Himura would not put himself at risk by venturing too closely to his enemies, even to protect her. After all, he had allowed her into town by herself, hadn't he? Noble, indeed! But if he could somehow spur the assassin up the hill after her, it just might work out that Himura would run into one or two of the ninjas, maybe Sumita or Nakajō. If the gods would smile on him a little, just this once, Yatsume would be lurking, as well. No one would be able to get by all three of them, and he liked the poetic nature of it: one shadow assassin slain by another. And if Himura missed all those—or killed them, he didn't care—Tatsumi himself would be waiting at the shrine.

How to accomplish this? His head ached with the task, but he had to think through the timing. It would be tight. He would have to get to Tatsumi again before Himura, who would be hurrying. And he didn't want to take the chance of running into any of the crew himself, with their noisy explosives and stupid poisoned darts and oddball weapons. He didn't trust any of them to be too meticulous about identification before they attacked.

And suddenly, just like that, he could see it all laid out like a timetable. If he left right at the stroke of midnight, he would just have time to make it to the shrine during the night and convince Tatsumi to have his ninjas lay traps and lie in wait. Then he could slip back down the hill to the cabin and hide himself so that he could watch for her departure. When she was safely away, he would tell Himura—he could almost taste this part—that she had been the spy all along, that she had been working for his enemies, that she never cared for him. If he knew Himura at all, with his supercilious righteousness, this would practically kill him on the spot. Not only would he have been deceived into a false romance, but he would have to admit that his vaunted perceptive abilities had failed miserably, hoodwinked by the very person he had let himself trust.

If only everything works… I should get to sleep. Tomorrow is a busy day.

Now he would sleep well. After all, wasn't that what friends were for, in the end? Betrayal.

* * *

The wind was strong, and fresh in his face, and the spray from the ship's prow smelled of freedom. They sat high in the prow and leaned out over the railing, their faces damp with mist and shining in the sun. He'd never been shipboard before, and hadn't imagined its delights. The lake air was brisk, and he felt like he was flying. Maybe he was born for the sea. Maybe he could be a fisherman in their new home. His heart thudded with joy, and relief. It had been a near thing, but they had made their escape, and he felt nothing could catch them now. He looked over at her, watched her profile against the water and the blue mountains on the far shore. He couldn't imagine anything that could be added to make him happier.

She turned to him and said something, but he couldn't hear her over the wind. "What did you say?" She leaned in to speak in his ear, her face close against his. He could tell she was almost shouting, but it seemed to come from far away. "I loved you at your darkest." She pulled back, and he saw a line of blood on her cheek where it had rested against his. "I will always be with you."

As he put up his hand to wipe his blood from her skin, the hilt of his sword bumped his forearm, confusing him. He was sure that he'd left that behind in the cabin for Katsura to find. It disturbed him, its being here. Had he brought it by habit, stuck it into its old place in his obi? Then the captain adjusted the tiller, and suddenly the sun was in his eyes, blinding him. He could no longer see her, and the roar of the wind in his ears deafened him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and put his hand up for shade.

He had slept deeply after the efforts of the day and the excitement of their plans, and woke only when the sun broke over the horizon. Its rays streaming through the door, which was open just a crack, stabbed him awake. He felt groggy, almost hung over. The dream had seemed so real, but it was already fading, the shreds of it slipping out of his mind's grasp. It wasn't until he sat up that he noticed that he was alone on the futon. Where was she? For the last month, she had risen even later than usual, and often remained under the quilt, soaking up the last of their combined warmth.

Why is the door ajar? Ah, yes. She would be out in the shed, choosing her rhizomes. He would stoke the fire and start the water for their breakfast, and then take tea out to her, as she had done for him so many mornings. While the water heated, he dressed, and tucked the last of their belongings into the chest. He would tie and seal it later, once the irises were packed in.

The tea was ready, but he thought better about taking it outside to her. The cabin was already cozy, and the tea would cool too quickly out there. Instead, he would bring her inside, and put her feet in the fire's warm sand, and tuck their quilt around her shoulders, and serve her a cup of very hot tea. He smiled at how she would like being warmed up by him one last time before they left their first home. But when he opened the door, he came face-to-face with another face entirely.


	66. 64: In the Snow, Uphill, Both Ways

**TO MY GUEST REVIEWER:** Please (!) open a channel of communication between us. I would love to answer your questions, and talk with you about your ideas, but I can't as long as you are a guest. I looked at the profile of the name you put in one of your reviews, but it does not allow PM'ing. What's a writer to do?

 **Diminishing Returns**

Chapter 64: In the Snow, Uphill, Both Ways

 _In which nothing is as it seemed._

He was weak and winded. Surely he was almost there. He'd not imagined that the shrine was this far from the cabin, but he should have realized it since he'd been all over the mountain in his summer wanderings, and yet had not come across it.

The path was slow going, with her footprints showing clearly in snow fresh and deep. His legs felt heavy, but not nearly as heavy as his heart. He'd missed much, apparently. He'd missed the threat posed all along by Iizuka, had let his disdain for the man cloud his perception. When she had told him of that alarming meeting in the marketplace, he should have picked up that there was more to it than mere chance. But it had been early days for the two of them, and in spite of his intuition, he had let her assurances sway him.

He stumbled and caught himself with both hands, his left hand shoving his sword deep into the soft powder. When he pushed himself up and dug out his weapon, he left two bloody holes in the snow. He hadn't predicted the three ambushes, either. Another miss sprouting from his underestimation of Iizuka, he guessed.

Regardless of how she really felt about him, whether she loved him or whether she had deceived him all this time, he should have—should have!—understood that she would have been seen as his weak point, both by Iizuka and whomever he was now working for. Iizuka had made it clear that she had known of the forces arrayed against him. Of course she would not have burdened him with that knowledge, but he also knew that any action she could have taken to deflect the danger would in any case certainly have been detected by his enemies. He should have pressed her about that disturbing meeting with Iizuka at the time. Pressed her? He should have accompanied her, insisted on it. At least he should have gone after Iizuka, even over her protestations. He felt like kicking himself. Had he been asleep these past weeks? This was his fault. All of it, his failure.

He'd let himself be blinded by comfort and hope, and now here he was, desperate to reach her in time, with his eardrums blown out and his eyes nearly blinded by Sumita's suicidal explosion, his body reeling from Nakajō's poisoned dart, and his right shoulder ripped open by Yatsume's weird clawed weapon. But finally, here at the last, he could predict one thing with certainty: he will need to call on the very limits of his skill if he is to rescue her.


	67. 65: Trouble Such That None May Aid You

**Diminishing Returns**

Chapter 65: Trouble, Such That None May Aid You

 _In which negotiations break down._

Surely this was the right path. There had been no other.

She felt like she'd been climbing for days. Little puffs of her breath hung in the still air. They formed a string of pearly clouds behind her, and still the path rose under her feet, still the snow deepened. The cold helped. It kept her from overheating. In spite of everything, she was not exhausted, as she'd feared she might be.

As she climbed, mountain mist gathered around her. This was not lake fog, but dry, cottony cloud stuff. Finally, it was so thick that objects not ten paces away were invisible. She paused for breath, took one more step, and the shrine jumped out at her. It looked deserted, and she couldn't decide whether she'd prefer it if her appointment were kept or not. But, no, it was absolutely necessary that she make sure they wouldn't be followed. She crossed the clearing, and mounted the shrine's steps.

The door was heavy, but she kept tugging, and finally it creaked open. In the dim interior, two candles burned on either side of a statue of the Buddha. A low table in front of the statue held a dried-up branchlet of plum blossoms, a plate piled with a pyramid of four shriveled oranges, and small bowls filled with salt, rice, and saké. At first, the room seemed deserted, but then her eye traveled downward from the Buddha's peaceful face, and fell on the General's. His was not a peaceful face.

Before she could even greet him, he asked her the same question he'd asked her more than a year ago, before Kyoto, before the Kohagi-ya, before Ōtsu. Before Himura became Kenshin. "Tell me, girl. Did you love Kiyosato?"

At this, all her carefully prepared statements and arguments and information flew out of her head. Even though she knew her own heart, memories of Akira rose vividly in her mind. Enishi, and her father, too, seemed to appear and turn their faces toward her. Then she remembered her beloved husband in shared moments, smiling at her, sweating in their garden, napping on the porch, fierce and tender in the night. And there was her future, the soul that slept within her.

The tangle that her life had become prevented her even being able to formulate an answer, and she realized that nothing she could say would sway this man from his course. Her heart felt like it would burst from her chest with pain and love and regret and hope. Ah! Foolish girl that she was, she had thought she could reason with this monster, could ask him simply to forget about them, to leave them in peace in their new little life.

He scowled at her. "You have forsaken your betrothed. Faithless woman!"

"No…" she began. That was not the way it was at all. He was twisting everything into ugliness.

He leaned menacingly toward her. "Have you been imagining a life with Himura? Don't you know him by now? He is less than human." He hissed in her face, "He will always disappoint you!"

She tried again, weakly. "No, he is—"

"No? You are not considering living with him?" One eyebrow quirked upward. He eyed her closely. "Are you telling me that your heart belongs to one while your body nurtures the seed of another? You are fickle, like all your kind!"

She slumped to her knees before him—how had he detected that? He smirked, and it spurred her to try again. She ignored the slur, and the change of subject, and talked only of that which might save him. "Himura has sheathed his sword. He has turned from that life and abandoned the revolution. Please." She grabbed hold of his trouser leg with one hand and bowed to touch the floor with her forehead. "Please spare him."

He shook free of her grip. "Psht. He is a boy, too young to know his own mind." Close by, a massive explosion rang through the forest, and the little shrine shuddered, rippling the surface of the sacrificial saké. Tatsumi lifted his head and listened. "Besides, he is on his way here." At her sharp gasp, he turned and grabbed her arms just as she began to rise. "Oh, no! You will not run to warn him!" He lifted her bodily and tossed her into a corner behind the statue. Her kaiken fell out of her obi onto the floor. In one stride, he reached it and scooped it up. The impact had knocked the wind out of her, and she lay crumpled there, unable to speak. Her mouth tasted of iron.

Tatsumi stood over her, flipping her knife in one hand. From outside came the sound of someone slipping and falling their way up the path to the shrine. "Ah, here is your husband now." He grinned malevolently. "Watch. Watch and see what happens to a demon." He stepped outside, closing the heavy door behind him.

Her head rang, and her limbs were like seaweed. She crawled her way over to the door. What she saw through gaps between its weathered boards horrified her. He was bleeding, staggering, flailing his sword wildly. She'd never seen him in anything other than perfect physical control, not, at least, with his sword in his hand. She watched in disbelief as Tatsumi beat him mercilessly with his fists, watched her husband's body fall again and again, only to return, relentless, each time weaker and more damaged. She knew he would not stop.


	68. 66: A Bared Bodkin

**Diminishing Returns**

Chapter 66: A Bared Bodkin

 _Hell in a handbasket._

The sword was new. Absolutely new, and barely touched—only the sword maker, and his own master, had so much as laid a finger on it. The texture of the wrappings was unworn, the lines of the fittings and fasteners sharp, the lacquer of the sheath, smooth and with a flawless shine. More than that, however, as he held it—and even a novice like himself could feel it—when he put his hand on the hilt and hefted it, it was silent, mute. No spirit, only steel and wood.

The first lesson had been how to hold a sword, before he had his own, even before he'd learned that first kata. When the big hands had molded the small ones around the hilt of Winter Moon, he'd felt a wave of what he could only think of as a presence. A kind of sound filled his ears, and his vision had dimmed, clouded with haunting images. It seemed he remembered things: pain and terror, strength and gratitude, power and responsibility. Blood. Death. And life. Something big swelled inside him, and he felt like he was being lifted up. "…little finger at the end of the hilt…not so tight…extension of your arm…" There was more, but he'd barely heard it. When he'd finally released his grip on the sword, he'd staggered under the sudden silence in his ears and the sharp brilliance of the sun, but the sights and sounds that he'd experienced did not fade from his memory. Afterwards, as he lay on his futon in the dark, he would often go to that place in his mind where these things lived and let them wash over him, submerge him in the dark, strange, fascinating stories. He did this so much that, little by little, these memories became a part of him. He began to understand his name: Kenshin. Heart of Sword.

By the time he reached Ōtsu —although by now he could not have noticed this—his sword was no longer new. It, too, had a voice. A spirit. Unique, and unmistakable. It was his voice now, his arm. Part of his very body. They were most profoundly a single thing.

Something is wrong.

This is his cut, the one that never fails him. There had been a pause in his attacker's blows, and he'd gathered the last of his strength for this strike, the one that would rescue her, and himself.

He should have felt his sword crack through the collarbone, and then break through four or five ribs before hitting the heavy muscle of the heart, sliding through the cartilage at the bottom of the sternum and the soft abdomen, and finally arcing completely out of Tatsumi's body. He is so familiar with the rhythm of this particular strike that it sometimes gets stuck in his head, like some demonic tune.

But this time, it was like riding a cart over an unevenly rutted road: the blade deflects weirdly to his left, and pops through too many ribs, then there is a rubble of small bones and a muddle of soft tissue, finally sticking fast in bone. All wrong.

His stance, weak in his wounded state, breaks toward the stuck blade, and he stumbles onto the body in front of him. It's wrong, too. Tatsumi was a mountain of a man. This body is far too small.

* * *

She can't seem to sort out what's happened.

 _Where am I?_

She opens her eyes, and a clear winter's sky fills her vision. Beneath her there is softness and warmth, but she's disconnected from it all. She tries to raise her head, but even before she learns that is impossible, she hears a voice, low and smooth and urgent. "Please lie still."

Oh, thank the gods, he's here. She remembers seeing him beaten, remembers pushing against the heavy door in a panic. Remembers seeing Tatsumi raise her kaiken—her own weapon!—and prepare an attack stance. After that, everything was a jumble.

But it's all right now, isn't it? She is in his arms, so he had bested Tatsumi after all! They will rest—how tired she is, her body heavy and cold with fatigue—and then return home. Safe from danger. Safe in their new life.

 _I will tell him on the way home._ He will need time to adjust to his new role, but she knows he will be happy in it.

She seems to be dressed too thinly. This high on the mountain the cold is bitter, and it seeps through her kimono, through the many layers of silk and cotton. She wishes to have more of his body's heat, and she tries to move closer, but her limbs will not obey. It must be the new life draining her strength.

 _Would you please hold me closer? I am so cold. So tired._ She can't be sure she'd said that aloud. She struggles to try again, to get enough breath, to force it past her lips, to make them move.

"I'm sorry." His voice is strained, tight and unnatural. He hardly sounds like himself. He does hold her tighter, but it doesn't help. "I should have…" He goes on, but she has trouble following his words. Her ears are ringing, and his voice fades in and out.

Something is wrong.

As he tightens his grip on her, the movement turns her head. Through her dimming vision, the sight that meets her eyes makes her breath catch in her throat. Tatsumi's huge body sprawls against the steps of the shrine, his face and neck split from eye socket to windpipe, and it doesn't take a swordsman to see that it is not a sword's wound. She must have succeeded in turning her kaiken in his grip. It was the one move her brother had shown her, the one to use when someone's coming straight at you with a small knife and your only weapon is the one in your attacker's hand. Blood paints the torn ground in front of the shrine, and a red path leads away towards the two of them. It widens as it grows closer. Almost against her will, she follows it with her eyes. A pool of blood surrounds them.

What's going on? Her body won't obey her command to sit up, and she can't feel her right arm. She should not feel quite this cold, or this fatigued. She looks up into his face, and the expression there drives the last bit of warmth out of her. His eyes are shut tight and his face drawn with grief. What she can see of him is splattered with blood. She hopes it is not his own. She wants it to be all hers. Or Tatsumi's. His skin is the white of the winter sky behind him, except for the blazing bright red of his scar. It's bleeding.

* * *

The attacks had damaged and weakened him, perhaps even more than he'd realized. He'd been unable to prevail against the General. Wasn't it possible that his last strike, the very last one he'd had in him, had been weakened as well? Surely that's it. In fact, he's certain of it. True, she's hurt badly, but, after all, he'd saved her once before; he would do so again.

* * *

Everything is fading, slipping through her fingers like a summer breeze. She is losing it all, her body failing, dying, and, with it, the life that now will never be—she can feel the tiny spirit struggling in her belly. But the cracking of her heart—that's for him. He will never be free of this. He will never know all they'd had right at their fingertips. Will never know she had forgiven him. Will never know the family they had been for a moment. She knows him. He will suffer for the rest of his life. These thoughts spur her to try again, and she tries to speak, but her tongue is stiff, her lips like wood. Her jaw moves, and she feels his hand press her head closer to him. She can feel his voice rumbling in his chest. Her left arm lies flung out from her body, nestled in the sodden snow, and its fingers twitch. In her palm, the handle of her kaiken is solid and heavy. She seems to hear her mother's soothing voice, calling to her. _Any act can become an act of love._ She makes the only gesture of wholeness she can think of. Her kaiken's tip finds his cheek. Her movements are weak and jerky, but she draws her blade across his scar, sealing and healing it with the new cut.

* * *

He sees her lift her blade toward him. That's good. That's right. As it should be. A just punishment, for his crime against her, against the multitude of his other victims. The proper end for an apprentice so unworthy of his ancient and honored style. An easy, welcome release from his shameful, error-ridden past and a future promising only grief and pain. He closes his eyes, bows his head, and readies his neck for the cut.

* * *

The mountainside and shrine grounds are littered with bodies, and blood cools on every surface. The nearby trees, even the walls of the shrine itself, are not spared. The one man left alive can't hear, can barely see, and is gravely wounded, almost unto death. There is no one to notice the small witness who had hidden himself behind the trees that line the path up to the shrine, a tragically disobedient witness who had watched and listened as it all went wrong. A young, foolish heart shredded by witnessing something that would break hearts far more hardened: the murder of a beloved sister. A boy's heart, broken such that it will never again be fully human, now on his own before his time, alone with his grief and hate.

* * *

On this perfect winter's day, the cloudless sky is the color of a robin's egg. The crackling-cold air is still and dry, so that his breath mists into a cloud that hangs at his mouth, only to be sucked back in with his next breath. Snow glistens brightly in the blooming morning light, twinkling like stars where it piles high along tree branches. Somewhere a deer brushes against a branch, and the falling snow shower breaks the frozen silence.

The melted snow tries to refreeze, icy and slick and the color of cherries in June. Even as the red river oozes over the white plain, its steam rises into his hair and crystallizes there. He'd seen a lava flow once, and this reminds him of that hot, thick liquid oozing sluggishly over its own cooled solid path, but ultimately destined to surrender its heat for good. It comes to him that they will begin to stick where they are if he doesn't move them soon, but he lingers, hanging between his dead dream and his desolate future, delaying the moment when lifting her body and feeling its unresisting limpness will mean he can never get back.

* * *

On his way back down to town, Iizuka reconsiders his idea of delivering the news to Katsura personally, as satisfying as that would be. He has been riding a wave of vengeful adrenaline, but now he'd better think more calmly. That's right. That would have been simply delivering himself up. Katsura might not have him executed, at least, not immediately, but why should he endure any punishment at all? Better he should stay out of sight until the storm blows over. When he gets back to his room, he will write a short note, and find a messenger.


	69. 67: And Out With the Old

**A Ruined Soul**

Chapter 67: …And Out with the Old

 _In which Kenshin opens Tomoe's diary._

 _Your sword has been broken._

Five words, no more than that, centered on the sheet, in a hand he did not recognize. Katsura examined again the exterior of the folded note, but there was only his own name, with no hint of the author. The seal was a common one, and it had arrived in a packet along with several other, very ordinary, missives.

He tried not to put any real stock in this message from an anonymous source, but something about it made his blood run cold all the same. It was only three days to Ōtsu. He would leave in the morning, and, just in case, he would send a note to his usual undertakers to meet him there.

* * *

He felt a hundred years old. Half-blinded, bruised, bleeding from his eyes and ears, his nose and mouth, muscles quivering and depleted, he stumbled and slid down the forest trail with his burden, recognizing by smell and ragged, torn earth the sites of each ambush, each place where he'd been robbed of his faculties, of his skill and strength, where will had met will, and the day had made its choice.

By the time they arrived at the cabin, the hard, bright blue of the sky had given way to a glaring, white overcast that warned of snow. Even now, weightless flakes danced around him as he tried to mount the step to the porch. Exhausted, he dropped to his elbows, resting his arms—and their burden—on the cold wooden planks. He didn't know how long he might have stayed there, but the dead weight on his forearms and the dropping temperature of her flesh spurred him to try again.

He laid her out on the porch, unwilling to defile their home with even her blood, much less his. He fetched water, and rinsed away blood. Removed what seemed like miles of obi and fastening cords and layers of silk and cotton. He fetched more water, rinsed away more blood. He ran his hands over the skin that would never again respond to his touch, the red stains running off and giving way to a beautiful, unnatural alabaster. The shrouded sun dropped in the west, and the air cooled. His fingers grew numb, and his back weary; his knees might have frozen to the porch—he couldn't tell. He bound her broken body, split down the back from right shoulder to left hip, into a semblance of its proper shape. He rinsed her one last time, and then he dressed her in yukata. He'd had some idea of mending her ruined kimono, but he couldn't think of that now. Having packed into the medicine box everything that he had dared dream of, the unpacking of it to retrieve her yukata had drained him. He should clean himself, too, but his energy was spent. In the end, he simply removed his bloodied clothes, dragged a quilt outside, and wrapped himself in its soft warmth. He sat against the cabin's wall and was instantly asleep. He remained there through the night, her body at his feet.

All the while, the skies shed snow, soft and white, covering their tracks and their blood, repairing the damage to the mountainside.

* * *

Katsura had made good time. When he'd gone into hiding, he had chosen the port of Tsuruga both for its proximity to the City—a trip of only three and a half days—as well as its access to the sea should he be forced to flee to Hagi. And there was nothing like a port city for anonymity. Both he and Ikumatsu had been safe there, although it meant he'd missed Choshu's new year's meeting, for the first time ever.

Now his first consideration had paid off. He'd walked away from his hideout in Port Tsuruga early enough on the morning of the fourth of January to arrive in Nishi-azai, Lake Biwa's northernmost port, in time for some dinner and to secure a room for the night. The next morning's long-distance ferry overnighted at the lakeshore town of Omi-maiko, and then docked in Ōtsu late in the evening of the sixth. The moon was new, the sky overcast, and it was snowing gently, so he thought it wiser to wait for morning's light before trying to climb the mountain and search for the cabin.

The day broke clear and still, and he dressed and breakfasted quickly. As he paid for his room, he asked casually about "the couple on the hill." The innkeeper hadn't seen them recently, but seemed unconcerned. There was apparently no gossip about them. Katsura took that as a hopeful sign. Before he left town, he arranged for lodging for his undertaker and crew, and paid the innkeeper for their meals for a day.

On his way up the mountainside, Katsura steeled himself for what he might find. Now that he was here, the little niggles of doubt that he'd kept at bay during his journey would not be stilled. The climb was hard in the cold and snow, but the path served only the cabin, and he soon found himself standing before a structure even more tiny than he'd imagined it to be, barely enough for one, much less for the two he'd consigned to live there. There were homey touches here and there—pine boughs and salt bowls flanked the door—but their state of neglect stripped them of their warmth. He stepped up onto the porch and shoved aside the heavy wooden door.

Nothing moved: not the figure lying on the futon, nor the one kneeling beside it with its back to him. It took him a moment to take in what he saw, and to figure out the tragedy's outcome. He was ashamed to admit how relieved he was to discover that the note had been wrong about who was dead.

He knelt beside and just behind the boy, but still Kenshin didn't seem to notice his presence. After a time, Katsura broke the silence. "Kenshin-san."

He turned his head a little toward his commander. "Katsura-dono."

Katsura was moved by the pain and darkness in his voice. Perhaps the note had stated things correctly, after all. Well, there was something he could do. "Would you like me to take care of her for you?"

This silence was different, heavy with grief and denial. After a time, the boy finally took a breath. "Yes." Another silence. "Thank you."

Katsura reached out a hand and placed it on Kenshin's back. It was possibly the first time he'd ever touched his assassin. "Will you come back to me?" He could feel the wiry body tense. He could almost hear the boy's spirit crying out against it, against the idea of sinking back into the morass of violence and death and chaos. "We need you. We— I cannot do this without you."

But finally, "Yes." Then Kenshin turned to look at him. He did not bow his head or lower his eyes, but instead, faced his commander as a peer. That was when Katsura saw his face for the first time, noticed the fresh, pink scar across the old one, no longer pink, but white and healed. "Yes, I will come back. I will fight with you. But I will not be your sword again. And I will never have another master. When this war is over, I will leave you."

It was the longest speech Katsura had ever heard from the boy's mouth. It surprised him, and it was his turn to show deference and humility. He lowered his eyes and inclined his head. "Of course. Thank you, Himura-san."

Kenshin turned back to his wife's beautiful corpse. Katsura waited. He had questions, but they all seemed sacrilegious in this place of hushed grief. He did manage one, however, the only one that really mattered: "How did this happen?"

"I killed her." And then, in a voice stripped of emotion, with sentences stark and bare, the soldier briefed his commander on the tale of betrayal, deadly errors of judgment, misunderstanding, and misguided sacrifice. Even Katsura, a man accustomed to violence and seasoned by carnage and the cruelty and duplicity humans were capable of, was shocked into silence. He could not even offer the usual condolences—they seemed shamefully deficient.

A long silence followed this tragic narrative, then, finally, Katsura stood. Kenshin seemed to take no notice, and, after a moment, Katsura bowed low toward the boy, turned and left. It was only as he passed out the door this time that he noticed the strange sight of the sword lying crookedly, obviously abandoned, on the porch against the wall of the cabin.

Katsura felt on fire. He had spent too much time in hiding. Had he been able to achieve his goals last year, none of this would have happened. Well. It was time to finish this. When he got back to his room at the inn, he sent a message to Ōkami, telling her that he was coming back to prepare for the return of his men. He also posted a note to Ikumatsu, inviting her to come back, if she wanted to. When the body handlers arrived in Ōtsu, he would instruct them to take especial care with this particular assignment.

* * *

He thinks he may be going mad.

With every breath he smells her skin. When he lies on their futon in the cold, dark, still nights, he feels her warmth next to him, her hair spread across his chest, her cool hands on his body. The weight of her arm across his chest as she sleeps. He relives every inch and curve of the body that is not there. The winds are heavy this late in winter, and the cabin creaks. In the nights, sometimes the tatami squeaks in its old way. He should replace it, but he can't. Won't. Can't. He hasn't even removed the new year's decorations she had set out, the pine boughs dry and brown, with blown-in bits of broken leaves stuck in the crusted-over salt mounds in their bowls.

His dreams are torture, far beyond nightmares. He kills her over and over; at first, just as it happened, and then in every assassination scenario he'd ever created. She becomes all his victims. When he wakes, his nostrils are filled with a revolting odor, a mixture of the scent of white plum blossoms perfume and the stench of blood. It clings to him, sickens him; he cannot eat. He is sickened, too, by the neatness of this, his third, and last, strike against her. It was a strike intended for death, and death is what it brought.

His sword still lies outside, uncleaned, rusting, abandoned. He's not so much as glanced at it since tossing it there as he laid her body on the porch. He'd ignored it as he tended to her; he'd ignored it as he sat with her; he'd ignored it as he went in and out to replenish firewood, fetch water, relieve himself. He's tired of the effort required to ignore it, but he can't abide the thought of taking it back up. He will bind it. He will not clean it before he does so—it deserves, he deserves, to live with her blood as a permanent stain—and he will tie the scabbard to the hilt with the knot that is never untied, and then he will never touch it again.

* * *

"Sister, where are Ken-san and Tomoe-san? They have not come to see us for a long time."

"It's winter, Koko-chan. It's snowy and cold on the mountain, and the way down difficult."

"But I miss them!" The little girl pouted and picked at her rice. "Ken-san was going to teach me how to spin a top. And Tomoe-san—"

"That's enough. They will visit again when they can." Shiori poured the last of the tea into her little sister's cup. "Finish your breakfast."

* * *

Every morning, he wakes, and has to remind himself, has to feel again the life drain from his world. As he makes tea for one and sips its sweetness, he feels the sweetness of his barely-imagined future fading, slipping away, melting as surely as the mist on the lake melts under the merciless sun. At noon, as he takes a few bites of rice cold as snow, he sees her standing on the porch, just outside the open door, her pale kimono fading into the white winter sky behind her. In the evening, as he banks the fire, her dark silky hair disappears into the shadows as they close around him. As he tries to sleep, a branch sweeps against the side of the cabin, and he can hear her sweeping the tatami. In his memory, it is an achingly beautiful sound.

He regrets allowing Katsura's body handlers to take her away from him. With her body gone, he has to work at remembering that she is dead. He can no longer talk to her corpse, can no longer ask it, as he had again and again, for her forgiveness. Can no longer reaffirm his vow. He longs to see her face, just once more, to stroke her perfect cheek again, even cold and stiff. How was it possible that her spirit, that independence and determination and stubbornness, could have simply vanished? If only he could lie next to her again.

In his desperation for some connection, no matter how tiny or ephemeral, he suddenly remembers her diary. He paws through the medicine chest until he finds the bound volume, its cover dog-eared and worn. He pulls it out reverently and takes it over to the firepit. He will make tea, and savor the reading. He kindles and lights the long-dead coals, and heats the water. He pours himself a cup and settles himself at the edge of the warm fire. He is hoping that reading a few pages of her words will rekindle some life into his memories, ever more static, every day more dreamlike.

Oh, how that works.

He riffles through a few pages, and the puffs of air that rise from its pages take his breath away with the bouquet of summer warmth and sunshine; the vividness of the flood of images is unbearable. He slams the book shut between his fists. And yet he can't put it down. The pain of reanimated memories is seductive against the gray flatness of dead ones.

He re-opens it and turns pages, one by one, scanning dates, until he reaches one about six months before she arrived at the city. He plans to just dip into it, read a page here and a page there, but finds he can't stop. Her descriptions are evocative and authentic, and he can hear her voice as though she is reading aloud to him. She has pressed some flowers, and he comes across them like stepping-stones she has left for him along the path of her writing. He remembers the day she'd asked him to pluck the wisteria for her and her glee at having found the wild rose bush.

He'd been right to do this. His heart can feel again, for the first time in weeks. His face softens and his chest loosens.

He reads of her fiancé's murder, and her period of oblivion afterwards. She tells him of her recruitment, her arrival in the city, and their own meeting. The understanding explodes in his mind like one of Sumita's bombs, and the diary drops into his lap while he simply breathes, overwhelmed by a new guilt. His master had once said, "Old sins have long shadows."

 _My life has been a scourge._

Finally, he picks up the diary, searching for just one entry of peace, one memory he can cling to. He learns about the rhythm of her days at the inn, and of her growing friendship with Ōkami. She describes their early days together, and of her gradual awareness of her feelings for him. Here are passages telling of their summer and autumn, and he re-reads several pages with a smile on his face. But when she talks with herself of her tentative hopes for a future with him, of the possibility of a real home and a family, the echo with his own is too much. He closes the book and sets it down, very gently and carefully, and pushes it as far away from him as he can reach. He sits back up straight, and is still for a long time.

This has been a mistake. His heart is feeling again.

 _Grief is the price of love._ His master had said that to him once during yet another lecture, this one, he seems to recall, about attachments and their unsuitability for a practitioner of their style. He can't remember ever having wept, not even as a child, but the grief that wrenches tears from him now makes real for him what he'd learned from her, what he thought he'd already understood. He recalls the cries of anguish, the heartbreak in the faces of those who came to claim the bodies of the men he'd slain. Now her words were a living thing in his heart. The vow she'd asked of him made exquisite sense.

One morning, he looks outside, and sees that the sky has changed color while he wasn't paying attention. The flickering warmth of approaching spring and the fitful freeze of stubborn winter struggle against each other, and the softness of snow-covered trees has given way to black branches rimed with hard, glittery ice. Winter is fading, the spring rains are coming, and there is nothing he can do about it. He can fend off danger and pain for others, but not this, not for himself. He'd promised Katsura. _It may twist and turn, fall back on itself and start again, stumble over an infinite series of hindering rocks, but at last the river must answer the call to the sea._ His master had said that to him, too.

As he thinks about returning, finally knowing that he will, really admitting it to himself, some of the immature flash and fire that had led him away from his shishou begin to bubble back to life inside him. It's no longer who he is, but the marks left on his psyche are permanent—his mind keeps popping back into old habits despite his attempts to resist. It feels like wearing someone else's loincloth. Still, he fears that if he does not finish what he started, his decision to leave the sword may not stick.

He's going to have to get back into shape. He's rusty, and he feels slow. His sword is rusty, and bound. For him, that binding was a physical manifestation of his intention, the vow that she had inspired in him. Now that he is breaking his vow, he will do the same damage to the cord. He will not even attempt to untie it, but instead will slice it open, the first of many cuts. And he will not replace the cord, but rather will leave his sword bare, unable to be secured, forever alive. A reminder, so that he can never forget the living death that he carries by his side and in his soul.

He rummages about in the box where he keeps his kitchen knives, and removes the smallest one. Then he strides outside and kneels on the porch, facing the rising sun. For a few moments, he contemplates his sword in one hand and the knife in the other. Then, with swift resolve, he cuts the many windings and knots with which he'd silenced his sword. He watches the shredded cord fall away. He sets the knife down next him and takes up his sword in both hands. Steeling himself, he places one hand on the hilt and one on the scabbard and tugs. Nothing. He pulls harder, and the blade breaks free. It comes out brown with dried blood. Once more he will have to clean it of her blood. He spends most of the morning sitting by the bank of the river—the sheath is the trickiest—and in the evening he finishes polishing the blade by the light of the fire he kindled to make himself a rare hot meal.

In the morning, he rises and, still in his yukata, takes the sword out with him to greet the morning sun in the way he hasn't done since late last year. He sits on the edge of the porch as the sun shows itself. When he can feel warmth on his face, he lifts the sword from his lap and draws out the blade a few inches. He turns it, examining it as though he's never seen it before. The sun glints off its pristine, eager surface. He slides the blade home, then rises and returns to the cabin's interior. He dons kimono and hakama, and steps back outside into the full light of day. Without looking back, he jumps down off the porch, heading for his clearing.

When he gets there, however, he finds to his chagrin that he can't even get started. He does nothing but sit in the middle of the clearing, re-living the day she had accompanied him there. He is so still that the deer return. One of them noses the strange red foliage on the sudden new bush, but finally rejects it and moves off. Many hours later, he picks up the sword and returns to the empty cabin. That night he sleeps like the dead. Afterwards, his kata will have a new beginning—a quiet time of remembrance and reflection—and his fighting spirit will include a new, very human, note.

Soon it will be a year since they'd arrived together on this hillside overlooking Ōtsu. He wants to be gone before that day comes. He doesn't think he can bear the anniversaries of their "firsts" without her. But something about leaving is making him anxious. What is that? What's eating at him? He doesn't want to be here, but… Ah, that's it! He can't stand the thought of new occupiers. As unbearable are the memories he fears, even more repellent is the idea of strangers moving in, into their sacred space. It could be another couple—unthinkable!—or a soldier or two, galumphing around the place, drinking and whoring—intolerable! He has trouble breathing when he thinks about it. His body flushes hotly and floods with anger and revulsion, as though it is his own flesh being violated.

After a while, he knows what he will do.


	70. 68: Snow in the Night

**A Ruined Soul**

Chapter 68: Snow in the Night

 _In which Katsura braves Ōkami's displeasure._

The Commander stamped in out of the night in a flurry of wind and snow. It was deep in the small hours of the coming morning, so Ōkami herself greeted him, taking his straw raincoat and handing him dry, warmed socks in trade for his journey-fatigued sandals. All that day, after receiving his message, she had interrupted her chores often, visiting her shrine to pray that his fears were unfounded, but when she peered into the inky blackness behind him, and saw that he was alone, her heart sank.

She led him from the entry, along the silent, darkened hallway, and into his small private room. She'd warmed the room for him and kept the water hot, so by the time he emerged from behind the large painted screen, clad in yukata and with his hair down and tied for sleep, the tea was strong. She arranged the teapot, his tea cup, and the covered bowl of Tomoe's mushroom stew on a tray and set it in front of him, then moved to sit slightly behind him and a little to the side.

She hardly knew how to ask. It wasn't any of her business, but she had developed a tender spot for the lonely boy that Katsura had dragged into her inn. Many times she'd upbraided him for what he was doing to the youngster, and when she found out that he had joined the boy to her very own Yukishiro, whom she'd taken to her daughter-less heart, her fury had echoed down the hallway, nor did she bother to hide her displeasure for days afterwards. Katsura took to avoiding her until it was safe.

But it was when he sent them away that her heart had broken. It had seemed cold and heartless, those two children cast out on their own like that. In the end, she had to accept that a dozen times a day she would turn with a word of housekeeping advice, or to share a beautiful flower, or to teach a song from her youth, and find either no one at hand or, worse, some other girl. She held on to the time when they would return, and she would no longer feel so alone.

"Please accept my deepest condolences on the loss of your soldier, Katsura-san. I know he was special to you." She leaned forward to re-fill his tea cup. "He was special to me, too." She sat back, giving him privacy for his thoughts. She knew they were heavy—she could feel them in the air.

But the Commander didn't reply. She thought that odd, because they usually had an easy way between them. The assassin was the one who didn't speak, but Katsura could be, at least with her, almost garrulous. She suspected he used her as a sounding board, trusting in her loyalty and discretion almost beyond propriety. Only Takasugi and Ikumatsu were as close to him.

"Will you place him in your clan's cemetery?" She wanted to give him an opening to talk—she was sure he wanted to.

His response startled her. Quickly, he half rose and spun, re-seating himself so that he was facing her. His clenched fists rested on his thighs, the whitened knuckles standing out against his darker skin. He did not look at her, and she wondered what he was doing.

Then, he planted his hands on the floor in front of him and dropped his forehead on the tatami in the triangle they formed. "Please forgive me, Ōkami-dono." His voice was tight. "I cannot imagine that you will be able to forgive me. If you ask me to remove my company from your inn, we will leave immediately. Even tonight."

"Katsu-kun"—she often played on the difference in their ages and how long she had known him—"I'm sure I can forgive whatever you have done." What could he be thinking of?

He straightened, and now met her gaze. She could read there guilt and grief, and not a little courage. She did love this man, the closest thing she'd ever had to a son.

"It was not Himura's body I found in Ōtsu." A chill tendril threaded its way into her chest. "They were attacked. Something went wrong, and…" He stopped and took a breath. "I regret to tell you that Yukishiro-san is dead."

"No!" She couldn't breathe, could hardly think. "What—? How did—?" The tendril tightened around her heart, nearly stopping it. "Was it—" Her voice broke, and she tried again. "Whose blade was it?"

"He says it was his."

"That can't be—"

At the shock and pain in her voice, he held up a restraining hand. "It was an accident. I don't think even he knows exactly what happened. He would barely speak about it." He looked away and sighed. "He said he will return to us, but I'm not sure how much good he will be. The problem is… He blames himself." He shook his head sadly. "You know how he is."

She did know how he was, probably even better than his commander did. She sat in stunned silence for a space, and then, "If you don't need anything else…"

Katsura bowed low to her. "Of course. You must be exhausted. Thank you for everything."

By the time he raised his head, the door to his room was closing behind her.

* * *

She moved through the sleeping inn in a daze, hardly knowing how she made it back to her quarters.

The inn's storeroom was a large space, lined along three walls with shelves that held dishes, kitchen fittings, cleaning supplies, needles and thread, candles, aprons. In the raised middle of the space sat a grouping of paired cabinets and low tables. These cabinets held bowls and bases and fasteners for flower arranging. Along the wall across from the raised area, separated from it by a low aisle of pounded earth, were several alcoves whose doors were fitted with locks. These served as pantries and linen closets. One stocked minor supplies for the soldiers: polishing kits, sandals in various sizes, piles of folded spare kimono and hakama in the militia's colors. No ammunition, however. To Katsura's early request, she'd replied with a flat, "No. Not in my inn." He'd started to make his case, but she'd talked over him. "And you will kindly keep blood off my floors."

Everything that was required in the day-to-day operations of a large inn was contained in that room.

She had taken one of the alcoves for herself. It contained her shrine, her futon and quilt with her yukata folded up inside them, and a tiny dressing table with a candle, a comb, and a mirror stand on it. The proprietress of an inn as large and successful as hers had little need of space that did not either bring in money or support the bringing in of money.

The storeroom was dark and quiet now. A single moonbeam lay across the aisle and shimmered against her door. She turned her key in the lock and slipped in, closing the door behind her. For a moment, she rested against it. It wasn't until she'd laid out her futon and changed into her yukata that she allowed herself to think about what was under her dressing table. Sitting up in her bed, she slipped her hand under the table and drew out a small, wooden box. She opened it now for the first time in a year: a lavender scarf, a violet hair ribbon, and a well-worn letter. She had held these things as talismans to summon their owner back to her.

She was not a sentimental woman, and, now that she knew her friend was lost to her, she could not bear the thought of keeping these treasures. Uncharacteristically, however, she found herself reluctant to dispose of them. She should give them to someone, she supposed. A couple of her girls might have use for the scarf and the ribbon, but it saddened her to think of someone else using them, and not appreciating the girl that was. And she didn't want to have to see them every day. The letter? She knew the fire was the usual destination for orphan letters, but that, too, repulsed her. Perhaps, when the boy returned…


	71. 69: Let It Burn Let It Burn Let It Burn

**A Ruined Soul**

Chapter 69: Let It Burn, Let It Burn, Let It Burn

 _In which Kenshin sees to it that the cabin belongs to them, and to no one else._

A shining, soft morning. Early spring. Life is budding out on every branch, and nature has turned its face to the business of starting over.

He tidies the cabin one last time. The garden is cold and dead, but he remembers her irises. He has no idea when, or how, they are supposed to go back into the ground, but he can't bear to leave them languishing in the shed. He'd watched her as she had prepared their bed and settled them in, all those months ago, and he does his best with them, then stands over them a moment, thinking of them sleeping in a hole in the earth. He dares not hope that they will survive to bloom again, but at least now they are where she wanted them to be.

He's re-packed the medicine chest neatly and precisely. As he had done for the first step in their escape, so he has done for the last, except that this time he has left out her mirror in its box, her perfume jar, and her comb. Their futon and quilts he has folded precisely and stacked exactly square. The extra pots and bowls are arranged in the cupboard in the way she'd liked them. He's tucked his toy top back into the corner of the firepit, where he'd always kept it, and where it would now remain. He was no longer anything resembling a boy.

He steps out. Yes, the garden is in order, and the well's cover is straight, its bucket and dipper resting neatly on top. Everything is as it should be. He steps off the porch, leans the sword against the young maple he'd left standing for shade almost a year ago, and sets his mementos down next to it. He ties up his sleeves with a cord and surveys his homestead. It's time.

He'd said that once before, hadn't he? A long time ago. _"It's time. Come, take my hand."_

It takes him about an hour to arrange piles of dead branches in what he calculates will be the most effective locations. He fetches the dipper, and uses it to collect a couple of live coals for each pile. He distributes them among the piles, taking care to see that they catch. The flames flicker, take hold, and flourish. He steps back and back again as the fire rises eagerly up the cabin's walls. The skin of his face reddens, and tightens against his skull, and the tips of his hair float on the crackling, swirling heat. He leans down to retrieve her things—the mirror and perfume jar he tucks into the back of his hakama. The comb follows last, but only after he's lifted it to his nose and inhaled once more. Then he picks up the sword and thrusts it into his obi. One last look at their flaming home, then he turns and starts down the mountain.


	72. 70: Though the Moon Be Still As Bright

**A Ruined Soul**

Chapter 70: Though the Moon Be Still As Bright

 _In which the cherry blossom blizzard is welcome._

"He's back, I see." Takasugi poured tea into his friend's mug and handed it to him. "You do realize, don't you, that he is no longer your creature."

Katsura took the mug and wrapped his cold, aching hands around it. Even though spring had arrived—his cherry trees were already starting to shed their blossoms—it was still cold most days, and the nights were bitter. It seemed this winter would never end. Not even his beloved Ikumatsu could warm him these days. "No. He is different now."

Takasugi took up his shamisen and plucked out an old tune. Katsura knew this one. It was about a man who loses everything because of foolish hubris. It always depressed him. Takasugi said, "When I passed him in the hall yesterday, he looked right through me. I might as well have been smoke."

Katsura set down his mug and took up his pipe. "You were right, my friend. I did ruin his soul." He drew and exhaled tiny puffs, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched cherry blossom petals dance on the breeze outside the open door. "I will atone for that for the rest of my life."

* * *

The inn's storeroom was crowded, as busy as a festival street. Laundry carts trundled along the aisle in a steady stream, and deliverymen came and went through the alley door, stocking the food shelves. Girls scurried in and out of the main door, fetching baskets of vegetables and noodles and fish for the evening meal, emptying the shelves as fast as they were filled. Others crossed and re-crossed the aisle from the raised area as they needed more flowers or wire or stem-cutting scissors.

Kenshin entered this chaos tentatively, stepping a broken path around obstacles and trying to stay out of the way. Finally, he pressed himself back against the wall and surveyed the crowd until he saw his landlady as she emerged from a room with a stack of bathing linen in her arms. He called out over the din, "You sent for me, Ōkami-dono?"

Ōkami shoved the stack into the arms of the nearest girl. "Take these out to the bath." Then she turned towards Kenshin. "There you are, my boy." She made her way down the aisle toward him, pulling a ring of keys out from her obi. She stopped next to him and indicated he should move aside. "Thank you for coming." Then she fitted a key into the door he'd been standing against and slid it open. She stepped through and said, "Please come in."

Kenshin found himself in an austere room just big enough for two and a half tatami, with a bare, half-tatami space for shoes just inside the door. He suddenly realized that this must be Ōkami's room. He was shocked at its size—so much smaller than his own—and he couldn't imagine why he'd been brought here. He was uncomfortable to be in her personal space, and he shifted from foot to foot, unsure what to do with himself.

Ōkami was kneeling by a small table and reaching under it. When she'd retrieved what she was after, she turned to him. "Please sit, Ken-san." He sat with his knees on tatami and his feet in the clear space. On her lap was a folded scarf.

The light was dim, but as his eyes adjusted, they widened in shock. He scrambled back a little and made to rise and leave, but she put out her hand toward him. "No, please stay."

He looked up at her, confusion on his face, and asked, haltingly, "Is that… hers?" He felt like he'd been punched in the gut, and he could feel the blood draining from his face.

Ōkami opened the folds of the scarf, revealing a neatly folded ribbon lying next to a well-worn letter. "She left these here when she went with you." Ōkami lifted the ribbon and held it out toward him.

Tentatively, he took it in both hands, then held it to his nose, closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. He handed it back to her and asked, "That letter. What is that?"

Ōkami rearranged the ribbon neatly next to the letter again. "I don't know, but I think it must have been important to her. It looks worn. Like she kept it near her." She re-folded the scarf and laid her hands on it. "I never had a daughter, and Tomoe-san became special to me." She met his eyes. "Very special."

Kenshin found himself unable to speak, and could only nod in agreement.

"It is not possible for me to keep these, but it is also not possible for me to discard them." She held the scarf out to him on her palms. "I was hoping that you might take them."

* * *

It had been more than a month since his return to the Kohagi-ya, but his clothes still smelled of pine and cedar, the earthiness of their garden, even the smoke from their fires. Her scent lingered on his skin, in his hair. He missed the whiff of fishiness that used to waft up from the lake. And no one made his tea hot enough.

He walked the streets during the day, now. No longer an assassin, as an ordinary soldier he had no need to hide his identity. Most of the time he was among a pack of fellow soldiers, either guarding someone or heading off to a skirmish. He missed the air from around their cabin. Winter air in the City—for in spite of the calendar it still felt like winter—was bad, and the smoke from the fires people kindled trying to keep warm slunk low along the streets and down the alleys. He'd forgotten how crowded the streets were. How noisy. And the City remained cold, much colder than the country, and for far longer—he was warm only where her scarf encircled his neck. It seemed that everything he touched was frozen, cold and hard as ice. He'd forgotten that, too.

On the mountainside, he'd spent nights awake, regretting his past. Here, he spent wakeful nights tortured by what now could never be. He used to know better than to count on the future. When had he forgotten that? _I feel like someone left my cage open. Why didn't I run when I had the chance?_ She had been the heart of that future, but even as it began to distance itself from him, he wanted to cling to it. He decided he wouldn't think about that again.

The sakura fubuki was on the City now. The annual "blizzard of petals" had already whitened every surface, echoing the recent snows. He was grateful that their home had not had cherry trees around it. They had not shared this narrow slice of the season's cycle, and its novelty was a small mercy, a respite from memory.

What a fool he had been, to think that the times would allow him to escape justice. At least his scar no longer bled.

* * *

 **A/N: I took the title of this chapter from Lord Byron's poem, _So We'll Go No More a Roving_.**

So, we'll go no more a roving / So late into the night, / Though the heart be still as loving, / And the moon be still as bright. / For the sword outwears its sheath, / And the soul wears out the breast, / And the heart must pause to breathe, / And love itself have rest. / Though the night was made for loving, / And the day returns too soon, / Yet we'll go no more a roving / By the light of the moon.


	73. 71: An Ill Wind

**A Ruined Soul**

Chapter 71: An Ill Wind

 _Bad luck for one; a windfall for another._

Shishio's assignment as Katsura's new shadow assassin pleased him greatly, not least because his position no longer officially existed. He was shadow both because he worked alone and at night, and because no one, absolutely no one except for Katsura himself, knew about him. When the time was right, those who should know about him, those who mattered, would know, and would understand the key role he'd played in the triumph of his cause. He would make sure of it. For now, though, he had no inspector, and no one to clean up after him, and he chafed under that. He took it as a slight. On the other hand, he did report directly to Katsura about his kills, and his targets' names traveled on a whisper into his ear directly from Katsura's mouth. No intermediary of any kind. That part, he did like. It befitted his family's, and especially his own, elevated social position.

Katsura had warned him that the target of this first assignment was skilled, but, as it turned out, whatever skill he may have had was for naught. The man was a fool. Alone and drunk, he stumbled along the riverbank's pathway muttering to himself about "luck." Shishio trailed him for a short distance, then fell back and scrambled noiselessly up the bank to street level. His target was moving so slowly that the assassin easily reached the next bridge in time to drop silently back down to the riverwalk in front of him. The man only stopped because he nearly bumped into his assailant. He staggered back a step, peered at the blurry figure in front of him, and, finally realizing what was happening, blurted, "Kuso!" as he fumbled for his sword.

Iizuka's body made the barest splash as Shishio rolled it into the black water. He saw no reason to tell Katsura about the heavy purse he'd found when he'd searched it.


	74. The Payoff

**The Payoff**

 _Ōtsu, Meiji 31 (1898)_

 _An infiltration of irises._

"I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but my sister died several years ago." Emiko re-filled the tea cups of the man and woman seated before her. Their young son and her own two boys could be heard in the back garden playing samurai with bamboo sticks. "And I was so young that most of my memories are the stories Shiori told me about them." She set the teapot down on the table between them, and Tsubame took it up to pour for their hostess. "About the tragic lovers and their bloody end." Emiko sipped from her cup and kept its warmth in her hands against the fresh spring air floating in through the open shoji. "I don't even know how she found out the whole story, but I can tell you that as a young girl I was enchanted by the romance of their tale."

When the family Myōjin arrived in the town's crowded center, they'd questioned everyone they could about Iwata Shiori. Many people remembered her, but memories were patchy, and they had no luck until finally someone pointed them to Koko-chan.

All they'd had when they came to Ōtsu was a half-remembered name that Kenshin had mentioned in one of his stories that little Tsubame-chan had begged off him. The two of them had developed a quiet relationship over the years they lived together in the Tokyo dojo owned and operated by his second wife and occupied by their cobbled-together "family." They had recognized the gentle center, each in the other, and of an evening, when the rest of the residents could be heard practicing in the dojo, or squabbling in the kitchen, the little girl and the old-young man would find each other out on the cool, quiet veranda. Together they would watch the blue sky deepen to rose and then to indigo. He told her many little stories of the time he lived in a mountain cabin above a lakeshore town, and of the woman who had lived there with him. Tsubame came to feel that she knew her well, and came to love her, too. Even at her tender age, though, she knew it wiser to keep these stories to herself. She loved Kenshin's young girl of a wife too much to risk hurting her in any way. When she was older, she came to treasure not only these two women, these two loves, but, especially, the trust that Kenshin had placed in her by sharing these stories with her. Once he was gone, the responsibility—the keeping of the memories and the stories—had begun to feel almost sacred.

Yahiko ignored the steaming cup. "Do you know where their house was? I understand that it wasn't in the town proper. Somewhere on the hill or something?"

Emiko took up her cup and sipped from it while it was still hot. This far before the heat of summer, the tea cooled quickly. She was still using narrow, heavy winter cups instead of wide summer bowls. "We— That is, my friends and I tried to find it once. Our parents considered that we were still too young to be wandering around on the mountain, and they scolded us harshly for it."

Yahiko's face showed his frustration, and Tsubame's gentle voice covered the awkward moment. "You have been so kind to receive us and let us pester you about this ancient history. We will not interrupt your day any longer." She made to rise.

Emiko put out a hand to stop her. "Oh, no! Please wait! It's true that my friends didn't find the cabin." She looked at them with a secret smile. "But I did!"

The boys reached the clearing long before the adults. Tsubame had not dressed for country activities, and her husband and Emiko did not hurry her on the climb. By the time they arrived, the children were deep in their exploration.

The ruin was a beautiful relic. Little was left of the burned-out cabin, with its weathered, gray boards overgrown with vines, but they could make out where the firepit had been, and one of the boys had found a charred toy wooden top among the debris, now lacking its string, and was trying to set it spinning on what was left of the tiny porch. He had the most luck in a spot worn lower than the surrounding surface.

But the sight that made Tsubame's breath catch in her throat was the large flat area that surrounded the cabin on two sides. It was filled with irises, tall, wild and vigorous, and vividly purple.

"Tsu-san? Are you all right?" Yahiko took his wife's elbow protectively. Perhaps the climb had been too much for her.

"Oh, yes, husband. I am fine. Quite fine, in fact. It's wonderful!" She turned to him, her eyes glittering with tears, and gestured to the purple blanket. "Don't you see it? These are hers. Her flowers." She walked out among the blooms, and they were so tall that their tops brushed her fingertips.

A spring shower moved out onto the lake, and the wind picked up. It set the purple field in motion. She raised her face to the freshening breeze, and a smattering of tiny droplets swirled around her. "They bloom best in the rain, you know."


	75. Epilogue

**The Payoff**

 _Tokyo, Taishō 3_

 _An exchange of letters._

After Emperor Meiji's passing, a commemorative shrine was planned. Mrs. Myōjin had adored her Emperor, and read every news story she could find on him and his Empress. His passing had saddened her greatly, and both she and her husband waited for many hours among the silent, reverent throngs that lined the street along which his funeral cortege was to pass. It was the last event they attended together, and she was glad they had been able to share it before her beloved, too, passed out of her life. When it was announced that the chosen location of the shrine was the iris garden where the Emperor and Empress often visited during their visits to the Eastern City, she set her mind on the idea that two of Tomoe's bulbs should make their way into the new garden. She wrote to her son, who was in his third year studying engineering at the university in Tokyo.

 _My dearest son,_

 _I am hoping you still harbor warm thoughts for your mother. If that is so, perhaps you will be inclined to do something for me._

 _The shrine being built to honor our dear Meiji Emperor will include an iris garden, and the invitation has gone out for the whole country to send bulbs from all regions. If you remember the story behind my irises, you know it will be a happiness for me to send two of my own, and to think that those two sweet souls are still watching together over the era they helped to create._

 _If you are willing to indulge your old mother's foolish dream, please write back to me._

 _I am well, and you are in my heart every moment. Daily I ask our ancestors to watch over you and bring you good fortune. Do your best in your studies so that life favors you, and so your father can watch over you with pride._

 _Your devoted mother_

Shinya did write back.

 _Honored mother,_

 _It pleases me to hear of your good health._

 _I well remember the stories you have told me. I do not think that you will be satisfied with merely sending your irises to me. I have a school break coming up, so I will come get you and together we will tour the garden in progress. You may then give your flowers to the gardeners with your own hands._

 _Stay well until my return. Please take very good care of yourself until we are together again. I long to see you._

 _Your loving son_

Mrs. Myōjin and her son arrived just as the cherry blossoms began to fall. Tokyo was awash with flower-viewing parties, and the two of them laughed together as they picked pink and white petals out of each other's hair. Shinya escorted his mother to his favorite points of interest, and introduced her to the dishes and fashions of the booming city's young population. She was eager and game, but he noticed that her walk was slower than he remembered, and she tired early in the afternoon. At the end of a week, he loaded her with souvenirs and mementos of their time together, and put her on the train for Kyoto. Before she boarded, she kissed his cheek, right there in the train station. Neither of them mentioned her new fragility. She was home in a matter of hours, and she recalled with fondness how, in her youth, it had taken their patchwork family twenty days to walk this same path, once there and once back again after their great adventure against the evil Shishio and his band of thugs.

In early August, Shinya journeyed home one last time, the trip this time an urgent and heartbreaking interruption of his studies. He had not expected to lose the last of his family so soon. Afterwards, he did not return to school, but instead enlisted in the Navy, and was detailed to the destroyer _Shirotae_. He liked this assignment, liked putting his engineering skills to good use. They executed three day-long training cruises, just in and out of the harbor, and then put out from Osaka in late August for the port of Tsingtao on China's Shandong Peninsula. There, Japan and Great Britain were struggling to wrest control of the port from Germany and, on their fifth day of action, they engaged the German gunboat _SMS Jaguar._ The _Shirotae_ was the only Japanese ship lost in that first world-wide conflagration. There were no survivors.

Thirty-one years later, the Meiji memorial shrine was itself destroyed in a rain of fire from the sky, wiping out the last remembrance of the boy and the girl who rode the storm.


End file.
